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Chronicles of
The House of Borgia

.u^tf^'lY.

CHRONICLES OF THE
HOUSE OF BORGIA

FREDERICK BARON CORVO

" (5o I'etil tjuaigcr / subm^ttc leou euerie wbere
IPn&cr correction of beniguolencc
Bn6 wbcrc cnu^e is / loftc >gc come not there
3For on^ tb^nge / Jjepe :eour tretigc tbens
JEru'ec is full of frowarft reprcbens

Bn6 bow to burte l^etb cucr in a vpa^te
IRepe Tsour quaver / tbat it be not tber baste."

(William Caxton, in the Boke ofCurtesye, a.d. 1477.)

LONDON: GRANT RICHARDS

NEW YORK: E. P. BUTTON & CO.

I 90 I

' GIANNOTTO IL UOMANDO QUELLO CHE DEL SANTO
PADRE ET DE'CARDINALI ET DE GLI ALTRI CORTIGIANl
' GLI PAREA.

"ALQUALE IL GIUDEO PRESTAMENTE RISPOSE PAR-
' MENE MALE CHE IDDIO DEA A QUANTI SONO. ET
' DICOTO COSI CHE SE lO BEN SEPPl CONSIDERARE QUIVI
' NIUNA SANTITA NIUNA DIVOTIONE NIUNO BUONO OPERA
' O EXEMPLO DI VITA O D' ALTRO IN ALCUNO CHE CHE-
' RICO FOSSE VEDER MI PARVE MA LUSSERIA AVARITIA
' ET GOLOSITA ET SIMILI COSE ET PIGGIORI (SE PIGGIOR
' ESSER POSSONO IN ALCUNO) MI VI PARVE IN TANTA
'GRATIA DI TUTTI VEDERE CHE lO HO PIU TOSTO QUELLA
' PER UNA FUCINA DI DIABOLICHE OPERATIONI CHE SI
' DIVINE. ET PER QUELLO CHE lO ESTIMI CON OGNI
' SOLLECITUDINE ET CON OGNI INGEGNO ET CON OGNI
' ARTE MI PARE CHE IL VOSTRO PASTORE ET PER CONSE-
' QUENTE TUTTI GLI ALTRI SI PROCACCINO DI RIDUCERE
' A NULLA ET DI CACCIARE DEL MONDO LA CHRISTIANA
* RELIGIONE. LA DOVE ESSI FONDAMENTO ET SOSTEGNO
'ESSER DOVREBBER DI QUELLA. ET PERCIO CHE lO
' VEGGIO NON QUELLO ADVENIRE CHE ESSI PROCACCIANO
■ MA CONTINUAMENTE LA VOSTRA RELIGIONE AUMEN-
' TARSI ET PIU LUCIDA ET PIU CHIARA DIVENIRE MERI-
' TAMENTE MI PAR DISCERNER LO SPIRITO SANTO ESSER
' D" ESSA SI COME DI VERA ET DI SANTA PIU CHE D'
' ALCUN' ALTRA FONDAMENTO ET SOSTEGNO."

(GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO. DECAMERON.
GIORNATA J. NOVELLA IJ.)

Preface

Great Houses win and lose undying fame in a century.
They shoot, bud, bloom, bear fruit ; — from obscurity they
rise to dominate their Age, indelibly to write their names in
History : and, after a hundred years, giving place to others
who in turn shall take the stage, they descend into the
crowd, and live on, insignificant, retired, unknown.

Once upon a time, Caesars were masters of the world ;
and the genius of Divus Julius, of Divus Augustus, was
worshipped everywhere on altars. There are Cesarini at
this day in Rome, cosa grande c/i il sole, masters of wide
domains, but not of empires. Once upon time, Buonaparte
held Europe in its grip. Buonaparte at this day keeps exile
in Muscovy or Flanders. Once upon a time, the Sforza
were sovereigns-regnant ; and of their daughters were made
an empress and a queen. There are Sforza at this day at
Santafiora and at Rome ; peers of princes only, not of kings.
Once upon a time, Borgia was supreme in Christendom.
There are Borgia at this day, peers of France ; or patricians
whose names are written in the Golden Book of Rome.

In little more than a century, from 1455 to 1572, Borgia
sprang to the pedestal of fame ; leaping at a bound, from
little bishoprics and cardinalates, to the terrible altitude of
Peter's Throne ; producing, in those few years, two Popes,
and a Saint and General of Jesuits. It is true that there
died, in the nineteenth century, another Borgia of renown, —
the Lord Stefano Borgia, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Tide of

vii

Preface

San Clemente — a great and good man, admirable by Eng-
lishmen for a certain gracious deed which is not yet written
in English History ; and who preferred a second place to
that giddy pre-eminence on which his kin formerly had
played their part.

The history of the House of Borgia is the history of the
healing of the Great Schism ; of the Renascence of letters
and the arts ; of the Invention of Printing ; of the Muslim
Invasion of Europe ; of the consolidation of that Pontifical
Sovereignty which endured till 1870; the history of the
Discovery of a World ; the history of the Discovery, by
man, of Man.

" To penetrate the abyss of any human personality is
impossible. No man truly sees his living neighbour's,
brother's, wife's, — nay, even his own, soul." {John Adding-
ton Sy7no7tds.) Much more obscure must be his friend's ;
and darker still, his enemy's ; — and these alive. What,
then, can be known of personalities, who are but distant,
perhaps uninteresting, mere names ?

Chronicles there are, and chroniclers ; and no more
reliance can be placed in those, than in modern morning
and evening newspapers. The same defect is common to
both, — the personal equation, the human nature of the
writer, historian, journalist.

Cardinal Bartolomeo Sacchi (detto Platina) was '*a
heathen, and a bad one." He had to stand his trial on a
charge of worshipping false gods, was acquitted for want of
evidence, and departed this life in the Odour of Sanctity.
Modern discoveries, in the secret recesses of the catacombs,
have proved that he was used to carry on his nefarious
practices there, with a handful of other extravagant
athenians of like kidney. He wrote a History of the Popes,
which fairly deserves to be called veracious : but he had a
personal grudge against the Lord Paul P.P. II, Who had
put him to trial for paganism and grieved him with the
torture called The Question ; wherefore, he got even with

viii

Preface

His Holiness when he wrote His life, and a more singular
example of truth untruly told would be hard to find.
Platina died in the reign of the Lord Xystus P.P. IV ; and
his History of the Popes was continued by Onofrio Panvinii,
who, according to Sir Paul Rycaut, gravely states that, in
1489, the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII permitted mass to be
said without wine, in Norway ; because, that country being
cold and the distance far, the wine either was frozen, or was
turned to vinegar, before it could be brought thither.
Obviously, Platina and Panvinii require credible corro-
boration.

Messer Stefano Infessura lays himself open to suspicion,
as to his bona fides and as to his knowledge, by his remarks
on the Lord Xystus P.P. IV.

Monsignor Hans Burchard, whose original Diarium
awaits discovery, is careless, Teutonic, and petty.

The Orators of the Powers compile their state-dispatches
from what they have picked up when hanging about the
doors of palaces, or from the observations of bribed flunkeys.

Messer Paolo Giovio, preconised Bishop of Nocera by
the Lord Clement P.P. VII, Messer Francesco Guicciardini,
and Messer Benedetto Varchi, were Florentines, who wrote
in the Florentine manner, of Rome and Roman affairs, from
an antipathetic point of view, and solely on the gossip and
titde-tattle that filtered through to Florence after long years.
Yet they wrote in stately delicate language, " Dante's
desiderata, — that illustrious cardinal courtly curial mother-
tongue, proper to each Italian state, special to none,
whereby the local idioms of every city are to be measured,
weighed, compared." Only — only — the student of their
work must know that, (in common with all professional
manufacturers of squibs, libels, and lampoons, in every age,)
what they liked they praised ; and what they loathed they
rhetorically and categorically damned, compiling concise
catalogues of all the worst crimes known to casuistry, to lay
at their foe's door. Therefore, the student of history must

Preface

learn the personal sympathies and antipathies of these
historians ; he must find their personal equation : and, when
he has deducted that, he may arrive at least in juxtaposition
with truth. This method has been attempted in the present
work — in the absence of impersonal authorities.

Mi senibra che la storia si sia servita della famiglia
Borgia come di tela sopra la quale abbia voluio dipingere le
sfenatezze dei secoli XV, XVI . "It appears to me that
history has made the House of Borgia to serve as a canvas
whereon to depict the unbridled licence of the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries." (Ragguali, sulla vita di Marino
Samcto, 207. itote.) By some historians, the Borgia women
are delineated as "poison-bearing maenads," or"veneficous
bacchantes " ; the Borgia men as monsters utterly flagitious :
both men and women of a wickedness perfectly impossible
to human nature, perfectly improbable even in nature kako-
daimoniacal. By other historians, chiefly, strange to say,
of the French School, and afllicted with the modern itch for
rehabilitation, the identical Borgia are displayed in the
character of stainless innocents who shine in the light of in-
conceivable virtue.

No man, save One, since Adam, has been wholly good.
Not one has been wholly bad. The truth about the Borgia,
no doubt, lies between the two extremes. They are accused
of loose morals, and of having been addicted to improper
practices and amusements.

Well ; what then ? Does anybody want to judge them }
Popes, and kings, and lovers, and men of intellect, and men
of war cannot be judged by the narrow code, the stunted
standard, of the journalist and the lodging-house keeper, or
the plumber and the haberdasher. So indecently unjust a
suggestion only could emanate from persons who expect to
gain in comparison.

Why should good hours of sunlight be wasted on the
judgment seat, by those who, presently, will have to take

Preface

their turn In the dock ? Why not leave the affairs of Borgia
to the Recordino' Ang^el ?

All about the Borg-Ia quite truly will be known, some
day ; and, in the Interim, more profitable entertainment may
be gained by frankly and openly studying that swift vivid
violent age, when " the Pope was an Italian Despot with
sundry sacerdotal additions;" when " what Mill, in his Essay
on Liberty, desired, — what seems every day more unattain-
able in modern life, — was enjoyed by the Italians ; there
was no check to the growth of personality, no grinding of men
down to match the averaged

"Amorist, agonist, man, that, incessantly toiling and striving,
" Snatches the glory of life only from love and from war —

that Is the formula in which the Borgia best may find
expression. For they, also, were human beings, who were
born, struggled through life, and died.

tF tF "R^

In this Ideal Content of the House of Borgia, there is
matter for a score of specialists. The present writer lays
no claim to any special knowledge whatever ; although his
studies obviously have led him more in one direction than
in another. Curbed by his limitations, he makes no pre-
tensions to the discovery of new or striking facts : but he
humbly trusts that he has been enabled to throw new and
natural light on myths and legends, and to re-arrange
causes and events In a humanly probable sequence.

In dealing with circumstantial calumny, he has adopted
an unworn system ; e.g., in the case of persons said to have
been raised to the purple In reward for criminal services.
Here, he furnishes complete lists of the persons raised to
the purple ; and, when the names of those accused of crime
do not appear therein, he takes the fact as direct and
positive refutation of the calumny.

Touching the matter of names and styles, he has made
an attempt to correct the slipshod and corrupt translations

Preface

of the same, which, at present, are the vogue. To allude
to Personages in terms which are appropriate enough for
one's terrier, or for one's slave ; to speak of sovereigns as
mere John, or of pontiffs as plain Paul ; are breaches of
etiquette of unpardonable grossness. The present writer
has tried, at least, to accord to his characters the use of the
names, and the courtesy of the styles that they actually
bore.

In his manner of writinof, he has endeavoured to rush
from mood to mood, in consonance with the subject under
consideration, with something of the flippant breathless
masterful versatility which Nature uses. For men were
very natural in the Borgian Era.

It is said that the style of a history should be grave and
stately ; and so it should be, when History is written in
epic form. But to write of men and women, — human men
and women, — on those inhuman lines, is nothing but an
unnatural crime ; and, also, as ridiculously incongruous and
inconsistent, as it would be to sing the Miserere 7nei Deus
to the tune of the Marseillaise. For human nature is not
at all times grave and stately ; but has its dressing-gown-
and-slipper periods, — being human nature. The aim of this
work is to display the Borgia alive and picturesque and
unconventional, as indeed they were ; not monumentally to
freeze them into ideally heroic moulds, or to chisel them
into conventionally unrecognisable effigies.

The writer does not write with the simple object of
" white-washing" the House of Borgia ; his present opinion
being that all men are too vile for words to tell.

Further, he does not write in the Roman Catholic
interest ; nor in the Jesuit interest ; nor in the interest of
any creed, or corporation, or even human being : but solely
as one who has scratched together some sherds of know-
ledge, which he perforce must sell, to live.

It should be unnecessary to say that no persuasion of,

\ii

Preface

and no offence to, any man, or any school of thought, is
intended in these pages ; and that the writer, in the alDsence
of desired advice, has written what he has written under
correction.

He returns thanks to the officers of the Oxford University
Galleries, of the Bodleian Library, and of the British
Museum, for courteous and valuable assistance.

XUl

The following works have been studied for the purpose of
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XV b

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xvm

Contents

BOOK I

The Kindling of the Fire Pa?e 3

Kindling

BOOK II

BOOK IV

A Flicker from the Embers
Appendices . . . •

The Roaring Blaze "

The Legend of the Borgia Venom . . - „ 214

PONTIFEX MaXIMUS ALEXANDER VI. ET PRINCEfS „ 24I

Sparks that Die " -54

BOOK III

The Brilliant Light " 297

Ashes ^■: t>i

336
363

XIX

List of Illustrations

Alexander P.P. VI (from a Portrait in the
Vatican Library)

Calixtus P.P. Ill

Alfonso of A r agon

Fridericus IV, Emperor

Alexander P.P. VI

Charles VIII of France

Fra Girolamo Savonarola .

Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara

Julius P.P. II ... .

Saint Francis Borgia .

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CHRONICLES OF THE

HOUSE OF BORGIA

"A FIRE, THAT IS KINDLED, BEGINS WITH SMOKE
AND HISSING, WHILE IT LAYS HOLD ON THE FAGGOTS ;
BURSTS INTO A ROARING BLAZE, WITH RAGING
TONGUES OF FLAME, DEVOURING ALL IN REACH,
SPANGLED WITH SPARKS THAT DIE; SETTLES INTO
THE STEADY GENIAL GLARE, THE BRILLIANT LIGHT,
THAT MEN CALL FIRE; BURNS AWAY TO SLOWLY
EXPIRING ASHES; SAVE WHERE SMOULDERING
EMBERS FLICKER, AND NURSE THE GLOW, UNTIL
PROPITIOUS BREEZES BLOW IT INTO LIFE AGAIN."

The Kindling of the Fire

" A fire, that is kindled, begins ivith smoke and hissing^ while it lays
hold on the faggots "

In the year 1455 of Restored Salvation, Christendom was
in a parlous way. The Muslim Infidel swarmed from the
dark Orient, sworn to plant the Crescent on the ruin of the
Cross. In resisting encroachment. King Wladislaw of
Hungary and the Apostolic Legate, the Most Illustrious^
Lord Giuliano Cesarini, Cardinal- Bishop of Tusculum, a
Roman of Rome, and scion of a most splendid family,^ had
laid down life at the Battle of Varna. After three and fifty
days of siege, Constantinople fell to the Great Turk, the
Sultan Muhammed II. loannes Palaioloofos, " King- and
Autocrat of the Romans," was dead ; and his successor
Konstantinos Dragases XIII, the last Christian Emperor of
the East, was slain in defence of his capital. By the fall
of the great Byzantine Empire, the bulwarks of Christendom
were broken down ; the Infidel was raiding on her borders.
Alone, with no ally, Jan Hunniades desperately defended
Hungary's frontier. The Powers of Europe occupied them-
selves with less important matters.

^ The epithet Most Eminent (Eminentissimo) was granted to cardinals
by the Lord Urban P.P. VIII, 1630. Prior to that, they were styled
Most Illustyious (Illustrissimo) ; or, in the case of the Cardinal-Dean and Car-
dinal Nephews, Most Honourable and Most Worshipful (Osservantissimo,
Colendissimo).

- They claim descent from the Gens Julia. Their armorials show the
Bear (Orsini) chained to the Column (Colonna) with the Imperial Eagle
displayed in chief.

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

At this time, Rome was the eye, and the brain, of the
world ; and Rome had seen and realised all that was
portended.

During many years, since the first signs of Muslim
activity, fugitives from Byzantium descended upon Italian
shores. The glory of Greece had gone to Imperial Rome.
The grandeur of Imperial Rome had returned to Byzantium.
And now the glory and grandeur of Byzantium was going
to Christian Rome. When danger menaced, when the day
of stress besfan to dawn, scholars and cunnino- artificers,
experts skilful in all knowledge, fled westward to the open
arms of Italy with their treasures of work. Italy welcomed
all who could enlarge, illuminate, her transcendent genius ;
learning and culture and skill found with her not exile but
a home, and a market for wares. Scholarship became the
fashion. " Literary taste was the regulative principle." It
was the Age of Acquisition. " Tuscan is hardly known to all
Italians, but Latin is spread far and wide thoughout the
world"; said Filelfo. But to know Greek was the real
test of a gentleman of that day ; and Greek scholars were
Italy's most honoured guests. Not content with the codices
and classics of antiquity that these brought with them,
Italian princes and patricians sent embassies to falling
Byzantium, to search for manuscripts, inscriptions, or carven
gems, and bronze, and marble. Greek intaglii and camei
graced the finger-rings, the ouches, collars, caps, of Venetian
senators, of the lords of Florence, of the sovereig^ns of the
Regno, ^ of the barons and cardinals and popes of Rome.
" They had made the discovery that the body of a man is a
miracle of beauty, each limb a divine wonder, each muscle
a joy as great as sight of stars or flowers." Messer Filippo
Brunelleschi, who truly said that his figure of Christ was a
crucified contadino, erected the marvellous dome of Florence.
For the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV, Messer Antonio Filarete
carved the Rapes of Leda and Ganumedes on the great
bronze spates of St. Peter's. Messer Lorenzo Ghiberti
modelled the marvellous doors of the Baptistery. Messer
Simone Fiorentino (detto Donatello) placed, on the north
wall of Orsanmichele, his superb St. George in marble ; and

1 The kingdoms of Aragon, Naples, the two SiciUes, and Jerusalem.

The Kindling of the Fire

cast in bronze for Duke Cosmo the nitid David of the
Bargello. Tommaso di Ser Giovanni degU Scheggia,
called Masaccio (great hulking Tom), painted St. Peter and
St. Paul raising the dead, with the skill which he learned
from Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini, called Masolino (pretty-
little Tom). Paolo Doni, nicknamed Uccello (Bird), put
birds into his pictures according to his wont. The Blessed
Giovangelico da Fiesole filled triptychs with his visions
of the angelic hierarchy. Fra Filippo Lippi painted the
St. Gabriel Archangel with the argus-eyed wings in an
admirable Annunciation. Petrarch and Boccaccio hunted
convents, abbeys, and museums, of Byzantium for codices.
Messer Poggio Bracciolini discovered manuscripts of
Lucretius Carus, of Vitruvius, of Quinctillian, and Cicero's
Oration For Caecina. "No severity of winter cold, no
snow, no length of journey, no roughness of road, prevented
him from bringing the monuments of antiquity to light,"
says Francesco Barbaro. Nor did he hesitate to steal, when
theft seemed necessary to secure a precious codex. Three
pupils of Manuel Chrysoloras won renown beyond all com-
petitors in the distinguished race : Giovanni Aurispa collected
no fewer than two hundred and thirty eight valuable manu-
scripts of antiquity ; Guarino da Verona and Francesco
Filelfo came back laden from Byzantium.

Drunk with the joy of the new learning, Italy failed to
perceive the true inwardness of her acquisitions. She was
blind to the peril which they most surely portended.

But Rome saw. And, during many years, Rome had
lifted up her voice and cried aloud that Italy enjoyed these
accessions to her treasure only because Byzantium was no
longer a safe repository for them. During many decades,
Rome proclaimed the danger implied by the advance of the
Muslim Infidel. But Christendom lent deaf ears, and
compared Rome to Kassandra. Then Immortal Rome was
lulled into a kind of apathy : her voice was heard less
frequently, speaking in feebler, in less insistent tone. And,
gradually, the potent spell of the Renascence mastered
Rome ; and, in the reign of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V,^ she
fell a victim to the fashionable delirium. Churches and

1 rater Patrum ; the official style of the Roman Pontiff.
5

chronicles of the House of Borgia

palaces were planned, and builded, and decorated. Manu-
scripts were collected, collated, copied. Libraries and
colleges were formed. Culture, at last, and for once, was
supreme ; and the phenomenon of needy genius was un-
known. It was an age when the demand for learning, and
for the fine arts, exceeded the supply.

Then, Rome knew that the beautiful may be purchased
at too dear a price ; that its essential evanescence needs the
safeguard of virtue and of heroism, of honour and of arms ;
precisely as woman needs the protection of man. Rome
perceived that the irruption of the Muslim Infidel was a
menace to civilisation, and she cried on Christendom to
resist the flood of barbarism now outpoured.

Hungary, alone of all the Occidental Powers, responded;
but then Hungary was actually in the Muslim clutch.

England, lately torn by Jack Cade's rebellion, was
entering upon a conflict bloodier than any American Civil
War or Boer Revolt. The reign of King Henry VI.
Plantagenet, gentlest saint that ever wore an earthly dia-
dem, drew near its close : from those pale prayer-raised
hands — holy hands that had lifted to Christ's Vicar a peti-
tion for the canonisation of England's Hero, King Alfred
the Great^ — the sceptre was about to fall. Trumpets were
soundinof from Northumberland to Kent. The clean air of
Yorkshire wolds sang with the hissing of cloth-yard shafts,
with the clang of steel of lance on shield. England was
an armed camp ; and the War of the Roses was begun.

Germany and Austria, under the rule of the Holy
Roman Emperor, " Caesar Semper Augustus " Friedrich IV
(The Pacific), seethed with politico-religious discontent.
Under the guise of a desire for reform, political and personal
ambitions strove. Caesar Friedrich IV held the reins of
government but loosely. Excellent as a figure-head, orna-
mental as an emperor, he had not his empire in the grip of
a mailed fist. The symbol A.E.I.O. U. (Austriae Est
ImperatorOrbis Universi — Alle Erde IstOesterreichs
Unterthan), which he had invented for his motto, repre-

1 The process of canonisation of King ^Elfred, though initiated by a
Majesty of England (himself a saint by acclamation), has not yet been com-
pleted by the Court of Rome after four hundred and fiftv years.

The Kindling of the Fire

sented his desire, but not his potentiality. Personal
aggrandisement employed the feudal sovereigns of the
empire : their suzerain's influence was no check upon them,

Italy, then, deserved the designation given to it in
modern times by Metternich ; it was not a nation, but a
geographical expression. In the north were the Republics
of Venice, Genoa, Florence, and their smaller imitators ;
with the royal duchies of Savoja, Milan, and Ferrara.
Across the country, from Rome and the Mediterranean, to
the Mark of Ancona and the Adriatic, in a north-easterly
direction, stretched the Papal States. The east and south,
with Sicily, Sardinia, and the Islands, were called The
Regno ; and were ruled from Naples by kings of the House
of Aragon. And dotted all over the land were small semi-
independent cities and territories, held as feudal fiefs by
local noble houses, whose barons bore the harmless title
of Tyrant, and exercised absolute lordship within their
little states, ^.^., the Manfredi, Tyrants of Faenza; the Mala-
testa, Tyrants of Rimini ; the Sforza, Tyrants of Pesaro,
Chotignuola, Santafiora, Imola and Forli ; etc.

France, having burned her greatest glory. The Maid of
Orleans, was recovering from victories by which, from 1434
to 1450, she had deprived England of all French territory
save Calais. Her feeble dastard King Charles VII. was
dead; and Louis XI., a gentleman of pleasure and piety,
occupied her throne,

Spain, united, after centuries of strife among her divers
kingdoms and antagonistic races, by the marriage of King
Don Hernando of Aragon to Queen Doiia Isabella of
Castile, was preparing for an era of colonial expansion.

Portugal was consolidating African discoveries and
acquisitions.

Norway and Sweden, after brief separation, once more
were united under the sceptre of Denmark ; and were
learning the lessons of peace.

And then, in Rome, in 1455, on the 24th of March, being
Monday in Passion- week, the Lord Nicholas P.P. V was
dead : and, with His death, the tide of the Italian Renascence
stayed.

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

The Colleore of Cardinals assumed the orovernment of
Rome and of the Universal Church, while the Conclave for
the election of the Successor of St. Peter was assembling.
During nine days the Novendialia, the quaint ceremonies
connected with the obsequies of a Pope, were celebrated.
On Good Friday, the 4th of April, after the Adoration of
the Cross, the Mass of the Presanctified, and the Exposition
of the Vernicle (or True Image of our Divine Redeemer,
vulgarly known as The Veronica), had been performed in
the Vatican Basilica, the cardinals were immured ; the doors
and windows of the Vatican were bricked up ; Pandolfo,
Prince Savelli, Hereditary Marshal of the Holy Roman
Church, entered upon the guardianship of the Conclave ;
and the election was be^un.

The College of Cardinals consisted then of twenty
members. Of these, only fifteen assisted at the Conclave
of 1455. In the fifteenth century, a journey across Europe,
from some distant see, occupied a longer time than the
eleven days which should elapse between a Pope's death
and the enclosure of the Conclave. Of these fifteen
cardinals present, seven were Italians, four Spaniards, two
Frenchmen, two Byzantines. As usual they were divided
into factions ; but, strange to say, the division was not one
of nationality. The ancient and interminable feud between
the great Roman baronial houses of Colonna and Orsini,
penetrated even here. Not temporal policy of the Holy
See, not differences of pious opinions, but simply rivalry of
clan, governed this election.

The Most Illustrious Lord Prospero Colonna, Cardinal-
Archdeacon of San Giorgio in Vehun Aztreuin, creature
{creatura) of the Lord Martin P.P. Ill, undoubtedly would
have been elected had the Lord Nicholas P.P. V died at
the beginning instead of at the end of a long illness : for,
according to the dispatch of Nicholas of Pontremoli, Orator
of Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti of Milan, dated the
first of April, 1455, he was then the favourite. Herr
Ludwig Pastor, whose valuable history of the Popes is also
the latest, most unaccountably urges that the great age of
Cardinal Colonna prevented his election. But the accurate
Ciacconi raises him to the purple with Cardinal Capranica

The Kindling of the Fire

at the Lord Martin P.P. Ill's fourth creation in 1426, he
being then still a youth {'' adkuc iuvenis ") ; the publication
of his elevation being delayed till the fifth consistory of the
8th of November 1430. Supposing him to have been of
the age of twenty-one years in 1426 — a very liberal assump-
tion in an age when boys became cardinals at thirteen,
benedicks at puberty, ancl fathers at fifteen — he only would
have reached the age of fifty in 1455. The disability of
senility may therefore be dismissed. In default of Cardinal
Prosper©, the Most Illustrious Lord Domenico Capranica,
Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of Santa Croce in Gerusa-
lemme, Cardinal-Penitentiary, Bishop of Fermo, and him-
self a Roman noble of the Ghibelline party, was put forward
by the House of Colonna as their second candidate.

On the other side, the wealthy business-like Roman
Guelf, the Lord Latino Orsini di Bari, Cardinal-Presbyter
of the Title of San Giovanni e San Paolo in Monte Ceho,
represented the interests of the House of Orsini : who
offered, as an alternative for the suffrages of the Sacred
College, the Venetian Lord Pietro Barbo, Cardinal-
Presbyter of the Tide of San Marco, and Bishop of Vicenza.

The first three scrutinies produced no result ; and the
cardinals conferred regarding the merits of the candidates,
and of the causes that they represented. Much was said on
behalf of Cardinal Capranica. He was " Romano di Roma,"
his character stood above reproach, his breeding was polite
and high. But Cardinal Orsini and his faction, though unable
to bring in their own nominee the Cardinal of Venice, were
strone enougfh to out-manoeuvre the candidate of Colonna :
and the electors found themselves at a deadlock.

In this emergency, the College, sought, and found, a
neutral ; a partizan neither of Colonna nor of Orsini. There
were two Byzantine cardinals ; the one, the Lord loannes
Bessarione, Cardinal- Bishop of Tusculum, Monk of the
Religion^ of St. Basil, Archbishop of Trebizond ; the other,
the Lord Isidoroof Thessalonika, Cardinal-Bishopof Sabina,
Monk of the Religion of St. Basil, Archbishop of Ruthenia.
Of these two, Cardinal Bessarionehadmany recommendations.

1 Religion — a gathering together for a pious purpose. It was the fifteenth
century equivalent for Order or Society.

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

He was a convert from the Greek Schism ; he had been a
pupil of Gemisthos Plethon at Constantinople ; no one was
of higher repute in Christian piety, more admirable in
doctrine, more ornate in generous manners. (Ciacconill.
906.) He had no enemy in the Conclave. At a juncture,
like the present, the election of a Byzantine Pontiff, who
naturally sympathised with the hapless Byzantines, would
have secured for Christendom a champion against the trium-
phant Muslim Infidel. When night closed the Conclave's
deliberations, it appeared certain that Cardinal Bessarione
would ascend the Throne of St. Peter on the morrow ; indeed
his brother-cardinals asked favours of him, as though he were
already in possession of the Keys. Had he condescended
to canvass the other fourteen electors, or to make the
slightest exertion on his own behalf, his election would have
been secure.

But, in the morning of that Easter Monday, the French
Archbishop of Avignon, the Lord Alain Coetivy Britto,
Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of Santa Prassede, created
a diversion against Cardinal Bessarione. " Shall we Latins,"
he protested, "shall we Latins go to Greece for the Head
of the Latin Church ? My Lord of Trebizond has not been
amonor us lono- enough to shave off his beard^ ; he is a mere
neophyte, a newcomer to Italy and to the Holy Roman
Church, and shall we set him over us ? " All day long the
cardinals debated ; but no election was achieved. Night
came, bringing no solution of the difficulty.

On the 8th of April a compromise was suggested. It
was resolved to postpone the contest, by electing an old man

^ The Lord Clement P.P. VII (Giulio de Medici), 1523-34, appears on
Cellini's lovely medals in a full beard. Probably, in His case, there was no
choice ; for, during the Sack of Rome in 1527 by the Lutheran Goths and
Catholic Catalans of the Elect-Emperor, Carlos V., His Holiness was holding
the Mola of Hadrian, or Castle of Santangelo, and enduring the hard priva-
tions of a siege. Afterwards He did not shave ; and full beards became the
fashion for the clergy. Later, the Lord Alexander P.P. VII (Flavio Chigi),
made the Vandyke beard and upturned mustachio the clerical mode; and,
later still, the whole face was shaved according to the present rule. But, at
the time when the Cardinal of Avignon reflected upon the Cardinal of
Trebizond's beard, there appears to have been a distinct prejudice in favour
of a shaven, indeed of a shorn, pope. This may be seen in the medals of
popes and cardinals of the fifteenth century (when cleanliness was a mark
of gentility), where the large tonsure and shaven faces are very noticeable.

The Kindling of the Fire

whose life was almost at an end. Therefore a cardinal
was chosen, whose age, in the course of nature, would cause
a new election in the near future ; whose colourless character
neither would alter nor interfere with the traditional policy
of the papacy ; who during a long life had eschewed pomp
and vain glory ; whose profound learning, wisdom, and
moderation had won for him his high place ; whose reputation
was blameless ; whose political capacity was high ; who was
the intimate of the friend and neighbour of Holy Church,
Don Alonso de Aragona, King of Naples ; lastly, one who,
being of the Spanish race, was the hereditary foe of Islam,
and pre-eminently qualified to defend Christendom from the
Muslim Infidel. The aforesaid Cardinal of Avignon, and
the Lord Ludovico Scarampi dell' Arena Mezzaruota,
Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of San Lorenzo in Damaso,
exerted all their influence to this end ; and, after a new
scrutiny, the Cardinal- Dean, the Lord Giorgio Flisco de
Savignana, Cardinal- Bishop of Ostia and Velletri, made
proclamation of election,

" I announce to you great joy. We have for a Pope
the Lord Alonso de Borja, Bishop of Valencia, Cardinal-
Presbyter of the Title of Santi Quattro Coronati, Who wills
to be called Calixtus the Third. "^

* # *

•V- -it- !^

•TV- 'IV- ■TV-

The Spanish House of Borja claims to originate in King
Don Ramiro Sanchez de Aragona, A. D. 1035.

Until the time of Don Pedro, Count of Aybarand Lord
of Borja, who died in 1152, the family was confined to
Spain. Then, according to valid authorities, the Junior
Branch, in the person of Don Ricardo de Borja, migrated to
the kingdom of Naples and the Two Sicilies, and took service
there. This Don Ricardo is named in a document of dona-
tion in the reign of the Lord Lucius P.P. Ill, 1181-1185

1 In the Acta Consistorialia of the Vatican Secret Archives, this Pope is
called Calixtus the Fourth, evidently by the stupidity of some Apostolic
Scribe, who happened to know that one John, Abbot of Struma, called himself
CaUxtus III. (having got himself schismatically and uncanonically elected in
the reign of the Lord Alexander P.P. Ill) ; and who had not the sense to
know that the Holy Roman Church has the habit of ignoring pseudopontiffs
and other pretenders.

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

(Ricchi) ; which should go to prove that the Junior Branch
was naturaHsed in Italy. Its lineal descendants undoubtedly
are living there at the beginning of the twentieth century ;
the latest recorded being Don Alessandro Borgia, who was
born at Milan in 1897. Fo^ purposes of clear arrange-
ment, the history of this Junior Branch may be rele-
gated to later pages ; the main interest lies in descendants
of Don Ximenes Garcia de Borja, the eldest son of the
aforesaid Don Pedro, and founder of the Senior Branch ;
which, though transplanted to Italy in the middle of the
fifteenth century, and flourishing there for some genera-
tions, must always be regarded as Spanish and not Italian.

There is record of a son of Don Ximenes Garcia de Borja
in 1244, called Gonzales Gil: his son, Don Raymon de
Borja, was the father of Don Juan Domingo de Borja, Lord
of La Torre de Canals in the city of Xativa in Valencia.
By his wife. Dona Francisca, this Don Juan Domingo had
at least two daughters and a son — Juana, Caterina, and
Alonso.

Dofia Juana married Don J ofre de Lan9ol; Dona Caterina
married Don Juan de Mila, Baron of Mazalanes ; a third
daughter, whose name is missings also married ; and the off-
spring of these three became later of extreme importance.

The son, Alonso, was born on St. Sylvester's Eve, 1378,
the year of the opening of the Great Schism, at Xativa,
and baptized in the church of St. Mary in that city. He
himself has told us this, in two Bulls dated 1457.^ His
youth was spent at the University of Lerida, where he
specialised in jurisprudence for the degree of Doctor in Civil
and Canon Law, and obtained a professorship and Holy
Order. While he was a young priest (1398- 1408) he
chanced to assist at a sermon preached by the great
Dominican Vincent Ferrer in a mission at Valencia. At

1 Villaniieva (I. i8,i8i) quotes two Bulls of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III^
giving relics to the church at Xativa. On p. 51, Villanueva alludes to him as
"Don Alonso de Borja, natural de la Torre de Canals, bautizndo en la Iglesia
Collegial de Xativa, hoy S. Felipe, electa en 20 de Agosto de 1 ^2g p or el Legado d&
Martin V. Conscrvo el gohierno de esta Iglesia hasta el aha en que murio, sienda
yu Papa Calixto III. En 1457 concedio a esta Iglesia un jubileo en el dia de la
Asuncion de nuestra Sehora, imponicndo para la fabrica la contribucion de diez
sueldos."

The Kindling of the Fire

the close of his discourse, the friar singled out from the
crowd Don Alonso de Borja, to whom he addressed this
remarkable prediction : " My son, you one day will be
called to be the ornament of your house and of your country.
You will be invested with the highest dignity that can fall
to the lot of man. After my death, I shall be the object of
your special honour. Endeavour to persevere in a life of
virtue." Don Alonso was impressed by this saying, for he
repeated it to St. John Capistran in 1449, and he tena-
ciously waited for the fulfilment. After His election to the
papacy. He performed the solemn canonisation of St. Vin-
cent Ferrer on the twenty-ninth of June, 1455.

Don Alonso proceeded from his University professor-
ship to a canonry in the cathedral of Lerida, which was
conferred upon him by his countryman Don Pedro de Luna,
the Pseudopontiff Benedict XIII. Later, he entered the
arena of politics as secretary to King Don Alonso I (The
Magnanimous) of Naples and the Two Sicilies ; and, here,
his diplomatic skill and legal training raised him to the
unofficial but important post of confidential counsellor to the
Majesty of the Regno. Now that he was domiciled in
Italy his fortunes moved swiftly. In 1429 he won the
gratitude of the Lord Martin P.P. Ill (or V) by winning
for His Holiness the support of Spain, and by negotiating
the renunciation of the Spanish Pseudopontiff, Don Gil
Munoz, who called himself Clement VIII.

These days of the Great Schism, when the Roman
Pontiffs had much ado to hold Their Own against irregularly
elected pseudopontiffs, must have been utterly horrible. A
reigning sovereign is uneasy when pretenders to, or usurpers
of, his crown appear. Republican France farcically banishes
men whose nobler forefathers represented other forms of
government. England sometimes wakes prodigally to spend
blood and treasure in support of her suzerainty. If secular
powers, then, strive, struggle for their life ; and, in the
struggle, cause distress, how many times more distressing
must have been the rivalry of the Great Schism, when the
prize at stake was the Headship of Christendom. This
consideration will make it easy to understand how great an
obligation the Lord Martin P.P. Ill lay under to the skilful

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

canon, who actually persuaded His rival peaceably to
renounce his claim to the triple crown, terminating the
thirty-eighth schism of the Holy Roman Church. As a
reward. Canon Alonso de Borja received the bishopric of
Valencia, his native diocese ; and, after his consecration, he
continued to be useful to King Don Alonso de Aragona, by
re-organising the government of the Regno, and by super-
vising the education of the King's Bastard and subsequent
successor, Don Ferrando.

# * *

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were not more
filled with improbable situations than the twentieth. The
situations were different, that is all. The situation of
bastards was quite curious, and must be realised by any
one who desires intelligently to understand the time. To
this intelligent understanding Ludovico Romano's theories
will lend aid. He argues that it is false to say that bastards
are infamous and incapable of honours. To the infamous
is denied the dignity of Decurion (command of ten men).
But bastards may become Decuriones. Therefore bastards
are neither infamous nor incapable of honour. Giampietro
de' Crescenzi Romani, in // Nobile Romano, states the case
thus : Plebeians are not eligible to the Decurionate.
Bastards are eligible to the Decurionate. Therefore,
bastards are not plebeians, but nobles if born of noble stock.
Bastards are capable of nobility, of secular and civil dignity ;
for Ishmael was not hunted from his father's house on
account of his bastardy, but on account of his insolence.
It is not necessary to quote Crescenzi's argument as to the
bastards of King David, from whom descends the Son of
David, Son of Abraham, according to the Scripture, and
Whom the Fathers of the Church acclaim as One of royal
generation ; nor to give more of his catalogue of noble
bastards than Theodoric, King of the Goths of Italy and of
Spain, the Emperor Charlemagne, Roberto and Pandolfo
Malatesta, Tyrants of Rimini, Giovanni Sforza, Tyrant of
Pesaro, William (called The Conqueror), Duke of Normandy
and King of England. He continues to say that nature
does not distinguish between bastards and legitimates ;
that the former are called natural children because they are

The Kindling of the Fire

true children of nature. Neither does grace distinguish ;
and, as bastards are capable of temporal nobility, so also
they are capable of spiritual, as witness St. Bridget of
Ireland, and other natural children of signal grace and
distinguished virtue. Further, he holds that the sons, of
bastards who lose nobility by rebellion, are not infamous ;
and recover nobility on their father's death ; that infamy of
any kind is washed-out by baptism : and that the Pope can
free from subsequently contracted infamy by His dispensa-
tion. He distinguishes between bastards only legitimated
by princes or the emperor, who are ineligible to eccle-
siastical benefices ; and bastards legitimated only by the
Pope, who cannot succeed to the fiefs of other princes. He
concludes that bastardy purges itself at the latest in the
fourth oreneration.

In the twentieth century, an inheritance devolves from
the holder to " the heirs male of his body lawfully be-
gotten " ; in the fifteenth, the proviso " lawfully begotten "
did not invariably obtain. A bastard, legitimated and
recognised by his father, was as valid and capable as the
son of a lawful marriage. The sin of the father and mother
was a sin personal to them, and none the less a Sin : but it
was not allowed to affect their innocent children. The
Lord Pius P.P. II, on his way to the Congress of Mantua
in 1459, was met on the frontier of Ferrara by eight
bastards of the royal House of Este, including the delicious
Borso, reigning duke, and two bastards of his highness's
bastard brother and predecessor Duke Leonello. These
matters should be understood ; for a large proportion of the
personages in this history were of illegitimate birth, and
under no disability of any kind thereby.

^ ^A, ^

■Tf* TT "W

Kincr Don Alonso I de Aragrona did not feel safe with
the crown of the Regno which he wore. The House of
Anjou claimed it. Madame Marguerite dAnjou, daughter
of the poet-king Rene, had ceded or sold her rights to the
Christian King Louis XI of France, whose claim was
supported by the Lord Martin P.P. III. The Magnani-
mous King Don Alonso I threatened to espouse the
cause and benefit by the aid of the Pseudopontiff (called

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Clement VIII) ; and so the materials for a devastating con-
flagration were brought together. But the diplomacy of
Bishop Alonso de Borja was repeated here. Once again, by-
negotiating the peaceful disappearance of a pseudopontiff,
he earned the gratitude of the Pope ; and the Lord
Martin P.P. Ill, Who owed so much to Bishop Alonso, was
easily persuaded to look favourably also upon Bishop
Alonso's royal master. Unfortunately the Pope died, and
His Successor, the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV had a prejudice
for the French claim, which resulted in a renewal of the
quarrel in 1439. But a third time the difficulties of the
Roman Pontiff were turned to account by Bishop Alonso.
When the schismatic Synod of Basilea, to gain some private
ends, futilely pronounced a sentence of excommunication
and deposition upon the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV, and
elected the ambitious Duke Amadeo of Savoja as Pseudo-
pontiff with the name Felix V, all Christendom expected
that King Don Alonso, who was a very crafty potentate,
would be only too happy to make common cause with the
rival of that Pope who would not confirm his crown to him.
But all Christendom was disappointed. King Don Alonso's
secretary ably manoeuvred in his accustomed manner.
First, Bishop Alonso de Borja in his proper person refused
to attend that schismatic Synod of Basilea ; and, by this
act, became persona gratissima at the Vatican. Second,
the King of Naples instructed his Orators (ambassadors) to
play with Pontiff and pseudopontiff, to find out which would
meet him with a satisfactory concession. Third, Don
Francesco Sforza-Visconti, Duke of Milan, began to harass
the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV. And, then, the Pope agreed
to receive an embassage from the King of Naples, and to
hear his cause pleaded by Bishop Alonso de Borja.

This was the cause of King^ Don Alonso. A bastard
of the House of Aragon, he had been adopted by Queen
Dona Juana of Naples, who lacked a lineal heir, in 1420.
He was acknowledged by the people as sovereign of the
Regno, and was actually in possession of the crown.

The Christian Kinor Louis XI. also claimed to have
been adopted by Queen Dona Juana : but he never had
been acknowledged, nor ever had possessed the crown.

The Kindling of the Fire

Then there was the matter of King Don Alonso's
bastard, Don Ferrandb. The childless Queen believed
him to be the son of Dona Margarita de Hijar, one of her
ladies ; and, in jealous rage, she smothered her. Where-
upon the King banished his wife to Aragon, and legitimated
Don Ferrando as his heir.

Let it be recognised that, in the fifteenth century, Popes
acted, and were expected to act, in the letter, as well as in
the spirit, of the momentous words which are said by the
cardinal-archdeacon to all of Them at Their coronation,
Receive this tiara adorned with three crowns, and know
Thyself to be the Ruler of the World, the Father of princes
and of kings, and the Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our
Saviour. The twentieth century is apt to conceive of the
Pope as an uninteresting, far-away, semi-diplomatic species
of clergyman, nourishing pretensions of utter insignificance.
It will be well to remember that once upon a time the Pope
was a Power, Who saw nothing figurative, metaphorical, or
extravagant in the exordium just quoted, Who was not by
any means a negligeable quantity in the world's affairs, and
Who literally had the unquestioned right of making or
unmaking princes and kings or even emperors.

Here was a case in point. King Don Alonso was a
crowned king ; but he perfectly was aware that he was
powerless to keep his crown, much less to secure the
succession for the offspring of his illicit love, unless he could
o-ain the confirmation, the licence, of the Roman Pontiff — ■
in technical phrase, a sovereign found it to be indispensable
that he should be able to add to his style of King By The
Grace Of God, And By The Favour Of The Apostolic See.

Hence the embassage to the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV,
headed by Bishop Alonso de Borja, to whose incessant
labour and exquisite mastery of affairs was due the treaty,
ratified in 1444, by which the Pope's Holiness of the one
part confirmed the crown of Naples, the Two Sicilies, and
Jerusalem, to King Don Alonso I. de Aragona, and licensed
the legitimation of Don Ferrando ; while the King's
Majesty of the other part agreed to defend the Lord
Eugenius P.P. IV against His enemies, and especially
against Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti of Milan.

17 B

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

As a reward for his skill in the role of peacemaker,
Bishop Alonso de Borja was raised to the purple on the
second of May 1444, as Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of
Santi Ouattro Coronati with curial rank ; and so King
Don Alonso, the Magnanimous, lost his most trusted coun-
sellor. The Bishop's bastard, Don Francisco de Borja,
who will appear later in this history, had been born at
Savina, in Valencia, in 1441.

# * *

The Cardinal of Valencia at the Court of Rome gained
the reputation of being inaccessible to flattery, incapable of
party-feeling, impregnable in integrity, inconspicuous in
morals, inexhaustible in capacity for business and in know-
ledge of canon-law. In 1446, the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV
restored the Hospital of the Confraternity of Santo Spirito,
in the Region of Borgc, to something of its pristine glory ;
and He undertook to contribute a yearly sum whereby its
usefulness among the poor and needy might be maintained.
The pontifical example of practical Christian charity set a
fashion for the cardinals of the curia. The quaint Bull
containing the subscribers' names is signed by

/, Eugenius, The Bishop of the Catholic Church,

and by nine cardinals, of whom the last is

/, the Cardinal of Valencia, Presbyter of the Title of
Santi Quattro Coronati.

Cardinal de Borja assisted at the election of the suc-
ceeding Pontiff, the Lord Nicholas P.P. V ; at Whose death,
in 1455, the prediction of St. Vincent Ferrer was fulfilled.

»y, .\i, oi.

-A" TV- "Tv-

At the time of His elevation to the Supreme Pontificate,
the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill was a feeble old man of the
age of seventy-seven years. His duties, as Governor of the
Bastard of Naples, as Bishop of Valencia, as Orator of
King to Pope, as Plenipotentiary between Pope and King,
as Counsellor of King, as Cardinal-Counsellor of Pope, and
his ceaseless studies in jurisprudence and canon-law, had
worn away the bodily strength of him — the perishable thin
scabbard that hid steel indomitable and keen.

t I

<^<«^^«a^ ^ c^ ^

JZZ.

The Kindling of the Fire

Outside the Vatican very diverse opinions were enter-
tained of Him. His long connection with King Don
Alonso I. caused anxiety, suspicion, and jealousy, among
the Powers of Italy. They were always disgusted, those
Powers, to find the Pope on easy terms with a temporal
sovereign, with one of themselves ; and the Magnanimous
King Don Alonso was the next-door neighbour, so to
speak, of the Lord Calixtus P.P. HI. Such a combination
inevitably inspired distrust. The fear was expressed that
Naples, through his former secretary, would rule the Holy
See — and Christendom. The official despatches of the
Orators of Florence, Genoa, and Venice, hypocritically
displayed the greatest satisfaction : but their private letters
were in a diametrically opposing strain. A great grievance
was made of the fact that the new Pope was a Spaniard
and a foreigner. Some thought that a handful of dis-
contented cardinals should leave Rome, set up a pseudo-
pontiff in another city, and inaugurate a Fortieth Schism.
Oh, people knew one another to be properly cantankerous
in the fifteenth century ! But Rome considered the Lord
Calixtus P.P. HI a just and right-minded man. The
Procurator-General of the Order of Teutonic Knights wrote
to the Grand Master on the third of May 1455 : " The new
Pope is an old man, of honourable and virtuous life, and of
excellent repute." Messer Bartolomeo Michele, a Sienese,
wrote to his native city, exhorting the Sienesi to send the
most splendid possible embassage to congratulate the Pope,
selecting for the same only eminent and worthy men, inas-
much as that the Lord Calixtus P.P. HI was excessively
learned and clear-sighted : " He is a man of great sanctity
and learning, a friend and adherent of King Don Alonso.
He has always shown Himself well-disposed to our city,
and by nature He is peaceable and kindly." But the best
appreciation of all is given by St. Antonino, that gentle,
brave Archbishop of Florence, whose quality all the world
admires and loves. He wrote to Messer Giovanni of
Orvieto, the 24th of April 1455.

"The election of the Lord CaUxtus P.P. Ill at first gave little satis-
faction to the Italians. Inprimis, he was Valencian or Catalan ; and

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

they feared lest He should transfer the Papal Court to another country.
Also, they feared lest He should entrust to Catalans the fortresses of
Holy Church, which, only after many difficulties, could be recovered.
But now they are reassured by more mature reflection, and by the
reputation that He bears for goodness, penetration, and impartiality.
And, also, I have seen His solemn promise that He will devote all His
powers against the Turks and for the conquest of Constantinople. It is
not to be believed or said that He is attached to one nation more than
another, but rather that, as a just and prudent man, He will give to
every one his due. Meanwhile, let us always think well of the Holy
Father, and judge His actions more favourably than those of any other
human being. And let us not be frightened by every little shock. Christ
guides the Barque of Peter, which, therefore, can never sink."

That letter contains a concise summary of the situation,
written with the benevolent simplicity of a dignified fine
gentleman, and with the unerring sapience of a saint.

^ •?? v?

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome. The insignia of His
office are the Fisherman's Ring, the Triple Crown, the
Triple Cross, and the Keys. At His election by the Con-
clave, He receives the Ring. Afterwards the insignia are
conferred, with the Pallium that He wears at all times in
sign of universal jurisdiction, at His coronation by the
Cardinal- Archdeacon in the Collegiate- Basilica of St. Peter-
by-the- Vatican. But yet another ceremony awaits perform-
ance. As Bishop of Rome, He must take formal possession
of, and be enthroned in, the cathedral of His diocese, either
in person or by proxy. That cathedral is not St. Peter's :
but St. John's m Laterano, which, consequently, bears on
its facade the magniloquent title

MOTHER AND MISTRESS OF ALL CHURCHES IN THE CITY AND IN THE WORLD

It is the most important church in Christendom.

The Lord Calixtus P.P. HI was elected on the eighth
of April 1455. On the twentieth He was crowned as
" Ruler of the World, Father of princes and of kings, and
Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour " ; and the same
day He made a triumphal progress through the city to take
possession of the Lateran. In the porch of that cathedral
there is a low marble throne, called Sedes Stercoraria, on

The Kindling of the Fire

which the Pope sits to receive the homage of the Lateran
Chapter while cantors chant the anthem

" He raiseth-up the poor out of the dust :
" and hfteth the needy out of the dung-hill.

" That He may set him with princes :
" even with the princes of His people.

(Ps. cxiii. 7, 8).

" Suscitans a terra inopem :

'■'■ et de stercore erigens pauperem.

" Ut collocet eum ami principibus :
" cum principibus populi Sui.

(Vulgate, Ps. cxii. 6, 7).

It has been seen that the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill was
not unnaturally popular. It will be readily admitted that
the Roman baronial houses of Colonna and Orsini would
have been more than human had they not felt some mortifi-
cation at the failure of their conclavial manoeuvres to
secure the Papacy for one of themselves. Still, the thing
was done. A Catalan — the Romans of the fifteenth century
called all Spaniards Catalans — a Catalan indubitably had
been elected ; but He was old, He was feeble. He might be
influenced. He might be amenable to intimidation, to a show
of force. It is so easy for the twentieth century, with its
jaded physique and sophisticated brain, and the magnificent
perspective of half a thousand years, to read the motives
which actuated the physically strong and intellectually
simple fifteenth, when the world — the dust which makes
man's flesh — was five centuries younger and fresher ; when
colour was vivid ; light, a blaze ; virtue and vice, extreme ;
passion, primitive and ardent ; life, violent ; youth, intense,
supreme ; and sententious pettifogging respectable medio-
crity, senile and debile, of no importance whatever.

So, while the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill was at the
Lateran, the barons of Rome took action. A slight quarrel
arising in the crowd between one of the Orsini and a
retainer of Anguillara (hereditary foes of Orsini) provided
a pretext. Instantly shouts ascended, and men of arms

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

coursed through the city roaring Orso, Orso (Bear, Bear —
war-cry of Orsini, alluding to their badge). From every dark
and narrow alley of the Regions of Campo Marzo and
Ponte, from the Albergo dell' Orso (Bear Inn) by the
Torre di Nona, from the castellated fortress which Orsini
had made of Pompey's Theatre, came the clang of arms,
with the rush of hurrying feet of desperate brigands,
adherents and mercenaries of Orsini ; and Don Napoleone
Orsini was at the head of three thousand men. Outside
the cathedral, the hum of a maddened mob swelled into a
raucous roar as of bears hungry for hot blood, when Count
Averso of Anguillara fled into the Lateran Basilica, seeking
sanctuary in the very presence of Christ's Vicar ; and,
above the roar, the voice of Orsini pierced the holy
portals of the Prince of Peace, penetrated to the ears
of Pope Calixtus throned as Bishop of Rome among
His canons in the centre of the apse, launching a hideous
threat to storm and sack the Lateran unless the body of
Anguillara were o-iven to him as meat for his three thousand
bears. There was a movement in the ermine and scarlet
college that stood near the papal throne, and Cardinal
Latino Orsini di Bari hurried down the nave to confer with
his turbulent brother, Don Napoleone. Though dis-
appointed that he had failed to win the Triregno^ for him-
self, this cardinal appears to have had some feeling of
decency as to what was due to Holy Church. As a
churchman he felt bound to stand by his order ; although
as an Orsini he would have preferred a different state of
affairs. Still, the object of the riot had been attained,
the Lord Calixtus P. P HI had received an object-lesson
poignant and pregnant to an ultimate degree, concerning
the kind of kakodaimons that He would have to quell, the
species of subject that He was called to rule. No doubt
these were the arguments used to his brother by the
cardinal. It was not the writhing mangled body of the
Eel (Anguillara) that the Bear (Orsini) crav^ed. That was
the merest subterfuge. But to humiliate the Holiness of

' The pontifical diadem, consisting of a conical cap woven of the plumage
of white peacocks and encircled by three crowns of gold. It is sometimes
called the Tiara, and must be distinguished from the Mitre.

The Kindling of the Fire

the Pope at the very moment of His exaltation from Sedes
Stercoraria to Lateran Throne, to terrify Him into malle-
ability, into subjugation to Orsini's will — that — that had been
done, and well done. Surely an aged man, so near His
grave as was the Lord Calixtus P.P. HI, would wish to pur-
chase peace with any sacrifice, now that once it had been
shown to Him what kind of devildom environed His very
throne-steps. Don Napoleone Orsini allowed himself to take
this view. He withdrew his myrmidons. The riot was
over. Presently the Pope was riding on His crimson-
caparisoned palfrey towards the Vatican, through a peaceful
city kneeling at the roadside for Apostolic Benediction.

JA, ^ Ji-

•VV- ■TV- TV-

The fashion which foreigners affect in writing of Italy
makes one laugh — and weep.

They drawl of a dreamland of subtle sweetness and
softest light, of delicate fantasy, of neutral hue ; peopled by
shades from faded frescoes aesthetically tinctured, academic,
conventional, conformant to the canons of that unspeakably
abominable dilution which the twentieth century calls Art ;
and mitigated only by a leavening of organ-grinders and
fortune-telling paroquets.

They must be blind, these foreigners — blind, physically
and mentally — blind, as those who will not see.

Italy is, and always has been, a land of raw reality, of
glittering light, of pure primary colour, of nature naked and
not ashamed, of perfectly transparent souls, of rapidest
versatility, clearest mystery, ultimate simplicity, steel, and
brains, and blood.

Else she had made no mark, no singular distinguished
mark, in history.

Has she made no mark ?

Ah — what a mark she has made !

* * #

The greatest historian of this period, perhaps the most
alert and agile writer of any period, Enea Silvio Bartolomeo
de' Piccolhuomini (who afterwards became Pope with the
title of the Lord Pius P.P. II), says of the Lord Calixtus
P.P. Ill, that His attention to the duties of His office was
amazing ; that His patience at audiences was astounding ;

chronicles of the House of Borgia

that He Himself dictated the Apostolic Briefs and Bulls
written to kings and princes, nor trusted them to the official
scribes ; that jurisprudence was His recreation ; that He was
as familiar with canon-law as though He were still professor
at the University of Lerida.

Two problems confronted Him at the beginning of His
reign : the Renascence of Learning, and the Infidel in
Christendom. His predecessor had been a man of words.
The Lord Calixtus P.P. HI was a man of strenuous deeds.
His attitude to Letters and Art was in strong contrast
to that of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V. This "withered
canonist," as a wit styled Him, was not in sympathy with
Culture. Wholly occupied in matters ecclesiastical and
political. He had nor time nor means nor inclination to
patronise the fashionable scholarship of His day. His
vogue was strictly practical.

One of the secrets of the success of the Holy Catholic
Apostolic and Roman Church is her catholicity. All sorts and
conditions of men can, and do, live within her boundaries.
The Lord Nicholas P.P. V had been a Maecenas of Letters
and the Arts. In His reign scholars, scribes, and artificers had
found their golden age. The Lord Calixtus P. P. 1 1 1 entirely
employed Himself in the defence of Christendom, and the
clientsof His predecessorwere consciousof the change. Liter-
ature and the fine arts have one very sorry effect upon their
professors. Intellectual culture avidly pursued makes its
devotees show pitifully by the side of the manly men who
deal with realities and verities, with life and death, the
sailors, soldiers, adventurers, and empire-builders. Letters
and the Arts cultivate the baser parts of man — meanness,
jealousy, conceit. The touchy nature of the writers and
artists of 1455 ^^^ ^^ violent denunciations of the Spanish
Pope. Messer Francesco Filelfo's letter (102) to the Car-
dinal of Trebizond shows how men of letters hated Him.
Another writer charged Him with destroying the Vatican
library. Bishop Vespasiano da Bisticci, of Vicenza, says :

" When Pope Calixtus began His reign, and saw so many excellent
books, five hundred of them resplendent in bindings of crimson velvet
with clasps of silver, He wondered greatly (it should be remembered that
printing was not invented), for the old canonist only was used to books

The Kindling of the Fire

written on linen (?) and stitched together. Instead of commending the
wisdom of His predecessor, He cried, on entering the library, See now
where the treasure of God's Church has gone. Soon He began to disperse
the Greek books. He gave several hundred to the Cardinal of Ruthenia.
As this latter was in his dotage, the volumes fell into his servants' hands.
Things which had been bought for golden florins^ were sold for a few
pence. Many Latin books came to Barcelona : some through the Bishop
of Vicb, powerful Datary of the Pope ; some as gifts to Catalan nobles.

Calumny (which, by-the-bye, ranks as mortal sin in
modern catechisms,) appears to be habitual to the faithful.
In this particular the fifteenth century meets the twentieth
on common ground. To speak truth in a paradox, the
proximate occasion of the sin of calumny is hatred of sin.
Roman Catholics, like Bishop Vespasiano, are, from their
conception, imbued and saturated with the idea of the
hideousness of sin, not of its stupidity and unprofitableness.
It is their bogey, their forbidden fruit, the covert strictly
preserved and labelled Trespassers will be prosecuted with
the utmost rigour of the Law. Consequently, Roman
Catholic human nature is violently fascinated by the bogey ;
has singularly well informed itself of the nature, colour,
shape, condition, and location, of the forbidden fruit ; has
minutely investigated every inch of ground and every blade
of grass, and every bird and bush in the strictly preserved
covert, simply and solely in order that it may avoid poaching,
sampling the forbidden fruit, or becoming a prey for the
bogey. When one has the duty of avoiding a thing, it is
well to know what the thing is which one must avoid ; but
it is quite easy to know more than enough. All this
intimate realisation of the hideousness of sin, this systematic
cataloguing of its divisions and sub-divisions, with elaborate
excursions along its divers ramifications, certainly inspires
a loathing of the intensest kind. It also has another effect.
It induces an exag-p-erated consciousness of virtue. When
human nature knows, and is able to describe, with a wealth
of detail ordinarily inaccessible, the horrible things which it
does not do, it becomes " puffed up," in the words of St. Paul.
This condition of " unctuous rectitude," inspired entirely by

* Thefiorino d'oro, ducato d'oro, and scudo d'oro were coins worth about half
a guinea, which, in the fifteenth century, had a purchasing value of £2 to

£2 I OS.

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

a horror of sin, is a proximate occasion of the sin of calumny.
Roman CathoHc human nature, not unconscious of its own
integrity, when confronted by an antipathetic personality,
instantly conceives of the latter as a sinner. I am right — you
disagree with me — therefore you are wrong — is the absurd
syllogism or logical process which it uses. And, drawing
upon its copious catalogues of sins, on the principle that he
who offends in the least is guilty of all, Roman Catholic human
nature will proceed to shew how exceedingly sinful it is
possible for an enemy to be. The said enemy, or perhaps
a mere opponent, incontinently finds himself accused of
breaking the Ten Commandments of God, the various
Precepts of the Church ; of committing the Seven Deadly
Sins — Pride, Covetousness, Lust. Anger, Gluttony, Envy,
Sloth ; the Six Sins against the Holy Ghost — Presumption
of God's Mercy, Despair, Impugning the Known Truth,
Envy at another's Spiritual Good, Obstinacy in Sin, Final
Impenitence; the Four Sins Crying to Heaven for Vengeance
— Wilful Murder, Sin of the Cities of the Plain, Oppression
of the Poor, Defrauding Labourers of theirWages ; or, if he
has not achieved the guilt of these in his proper person, at
least he has been an accomplice of some other sinner, in the
Nine Ways by which a Man may be Accessory to Another's
Sin — i.e., by counsel, command, consent, provocation, by
praise or flattery, by concealment, by partaking, by silence,
by defence of the ill which is done. That is, (in the twentieth
century when Catholics are ruled by a Press ostentatiously
Fenian and Anglophobe, and was, in the fifteenth century
when Catholics were also human, but not vulgar or sophisti-
cated), the predicament of anybody, Pope or peasant, who
incurs, or incurred, the disesteem of, or who makes, or made,
himself unpleasant to a brother in the Faith. By hints,
inferences, insinuations, ill-motives assigned, and a hundred
ingenious methods, rarely by defined accusations, the sin of
calumny is, and was, committed, absolutely and utterly
because the calumniator so hates sin as to have no difficulty
in persuading himself that the man who flouts him must be
a sinner. For be it noted, that all the calumnies that
bespatter the House of Borgia, all the " liability to disesteem,"
which through five centuries has been their portion, and has

The Kindling of the Fire

made their very name a synonym of Turpitude, all these
have a Roman Catholic origin. Roman Catholics are the
primal calumniators who have muddied, and do muddy,
God's Vicegerents, the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill, and His
nephew the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, with every species
of ordure, with ascriptions of every crime known to casuistry
(the science of cases of conscience), including those which
are unspeakable except in an appendix veiled in a learned
language quo minus erubescainus. Bishop Vespasiano da
Bisticci of Vicenza was a Roman Catholic ; Messer Stefano
Infessura, Monsignor Hans Burchard, Messer Francesco
Guicciardini, Bishop Paolo Giovio of Nocera, Messer
Giangiovio Pontano, Sannazar "The Christian Vergil,"
Messer Benedetto Varchi — they were all Roman Catholics
who inaugurated the campaign of calumny against the
Supreme Pontiffs of the House of Borgia. In dealing with
calumny, the difficulty is to obtain definite evidence of a
definite charge which is intrinsically false and, at the same
time, derogatory to the person against whom it is laid.
This difficulty is one that continually confronts the investi-
gator. Prelates, priests, princes, penmen, sometimes because
they had a grievance, sometimes confessedly wilfully,
sometimes by way of wanton babble, habitually launched
against their enemies or superiors accusations of depravity
the most loathsome, of crime the most odious. What
they said by word of mouth cannot surely be known Until
The Books Are Opened. What they wrote in pasquinades,
in diaries, in official despatches, in official chronicles, or for
the mere aesthetic pleasure of recording a salacious gibe in
curial Tuscan or in golden Latin — these remain. A few
of the more important icily will be discussed here. The
student of history knows no more refreshing recreation than
that of nailing liars, like vermin, to the wall.

The statement of Bishop Vespasiano da Bisticci of
Vicenza, quoted above, is a fair example of the less foetid
species of calumny : it only amounts to an accusation of
" philistinism." However, it at once may be described as
being both stupid and improbable. With regard to the
naif surprize, said to have been shown by the Lord Calixtus
P.P. Ill, on seeing "so many excellent books," is it likely

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

that, as Bishop Alonso de Borja, Ambassador Plenipoten-
tiary and Confidential Counsellor of the Majesty of Naples,
he never had seen fine things before ? Is it likely that
Cardinal Alonso de Borja, eleven years cardinal of the
curia residing in the Court of Rome, had never seen splendid
books before ? Of what kind then were the missals and
pontificals which, as bishop, he would have used in his
daily mass? Is it likely that Cardinal Alonso de Borja —
one of the actual electors of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V,
constantly at His side from beginning to end of His reign, if
not assistant to, at least cognizant of. His every action — had
never seen, had never touched, handled, tasted, those iden-
tical five hundred books, bound in crimson velvet with clasps
of silver, with which that august Pontiff enriched the
Vatican library. The assumption is ridiculous, absurd.

The calumny that the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill gave
books to the Bishop of Vich in the manner of a Vandal
arose in this way. The Lord Cosimo de Monserrato, Bishop
of Vich from 1460 to 1471, was ordered by His Holiness
to compile a catalogue of the books in the Vatican library,
on the sixteenth of April 1455, four days before His corona-
tion. A copy of this catalogue was brought to Vich by this
same Lord Cosimo on his appointment to the bishopric five
years later. It was most likely made by one of the Vatican
scribes,^ and it contains numerous marginal notes in the
bishop's handwriting. From these notes, a precise list of
the number of books actually given away by the Lord
Calixtus P.P. Ill may be obtained. They were five — not
"several hundred" — of no great value, and — duplicates.
Two of these, a copy of the Epistles of St. Augustine, anno-
tated by Nicholas of Lira, and a Book on the Truth of the
Catholic Faith, were presented to the Pope's late patron,
King Don Alonso de Aragona of Naples, the Two Sicilies,
and Jerusalem. The note against them in the catalogue is
S.D.N, dedit hunc domino regi A rag. (" Our Holy Lord
gave this to the lord king of Aragon.") Now, if He only
gave two books to His old friend and former employer
who (as may be judged from the fact that he employed

' The first printing press in Italy did not arrive till October 1465 a
Subjaco in the Sabine Hills.

The Kindling of the Fire

the renowned Messeri Lorenzo Valla and Giangiovio
Pontano as his secretaries) had a very pretty taste for
letters, who was a reigning sovereign, and an extremely
serviceable and powerful ally of the Holy See, is He likely
to have o-iven "several hundred" to the Cardinal of
Ruthenia and Catalan nobles ? Finally, the heathen Cardinal
Platina, who wrote his History of the Popes in the reign of
the Lord Xystus^ P.P. IV (the third in succession
from the Lord Calixtus P.P. HI,) expressly mentions the
magnificence of the library of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V,
which, certainly, he could not have known if it had been
destroyed in the manner described by the lying Bishop
Vespasiano da Bisticci of Vicenza.

One " philistine " act may be admitted on behalf of the
Lord Calixtus P.P. HI. He sold the silver from the bind-
inors of those books. He sacrificed them for the crusade
in defence of Christendom. He also sold all the Vatican
plate. He insisted that the salt-cellar of His Own table
should be of earthenware, not gold ; and, indeed. He even
offered His tiara in pledge for the same admirable object.
He was blamed.

The Lord Calixtus P. P. HI was by no means the enemy
of letters. He made havoc among the decadents, the
affected literary poseurs who infested the Borgian as well
as the Victorian Era ; but He cherished genius, and to
scholars of distinction He was a generous patron. The
diverting case of Messer Lorenzo Valla will serve for
an example. This notable, being one of the secretaries
of King Don Alonso I, was well-known to the Holiness of
the Pope. He was erudite beyond most of his contem-
pories, of a daring temperament, and impatient of bad
scholarship, falsehood, and superstition. In 1440 he indited
a merciless exposure of the monstrous fiction now known as
the Forged Decretals and Donation of Constantine, upon

^ The first Pontiff of this name, fifth in succession from the Lord St. Peter
P.P., is named in the Canon of the Mass as Xystus [Svaros, cf. Xanthus
(Savdos)]. The same form Xystus occurs in the Kalendarium, and, in fact, in
all officially issued liturgies ; and is adopted also in the authorised English
version of the Liturgy. The word Sixxus does not appear to be a Latin word
at all, and is not in Andrew's Latin-English Lexicon. It most likely is a
debased corruption from Xystus, when Latin liquefied into the Italian Sisxo.

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

which, in perfect good faith, the temporal dominions of the
Papacy then were held. Also, he attacked the leaden Latin
of the Vulgate, and lauded the Golden Latin of Vergil and
Cicero, or the Silver Latin of Tacitus. The twentieth
century — which knows the Latin of the Roman Mass to be
the low Latin of Roman plebeians of the first five centuries,
from the ao-e of the Lord St. Peter P.P. to that of His sue-
cessor the Lord St. Gelasius P. P., Whose "Prayer for Peace"
is the latest known addition to the canon — will not find
Messer Lorenzo Valla to have been guilty of any very
shocking crime herein. But the clergy of Naples considered
him in the light of a menace to the Christian Palladium,
and mentioned him to the Inquisition. When he was
brought before them, the Inquisitors invited him formally to
assent to a profession of faith, which was neither the
Apostles' nor the Nicene Creed, nor the Creed of St.
Athanasius, but one which they had drawn up to suit the
fancied needs of his case. The situation was the historical
parallel of one which sullied the dying years of the last
century. Messer Lorenzo knew too much ; took an impish
delight in saying what he knew ; he was a nuisance, a dis-
turbing influence. To the proposition of the Inquisition he
opposed a firm refusal ; he would not sign their specimen of
a creed. The circumstances now were becoming strained.
But the Inquisitors of the fifteenth century had more ser-
pentine wisdom than those (3( the nineteenth. They did not
proceed at once to an abrupt and tactless excommunication,
exacerbating to all parties. They tried another line.
Would Messer Lorenzo Valla have the courtesy, then, to
propound his own creed, that his judges might examine
whether it were heretical or no ? The reply of Messer
Lorenzo was delicious. " I believe," he said, " I believe
what Holy Mother Church believes. She knows nothing.
But — I believe what she believes.'' Just at this stage the
king sent a mandate to the Inquisitors of Naples, bidding
them to leave his Majesty's secretary alone ; and the process
ended here. But when the news of the case travelled to
Rome, the Lord Nicholas P.P. V, admiring the wit and
learning of Messer Lorenzo Valla, being amused, perhaps,
at the way in which he had taken the wind out of the sail of

3°

The Kindling of the Fire

the wily Inquisitors, invited the distinguished scholar to His
Court, where He named him Apostolic scribe, with magnifi-
cent appointments. On the death of that Pontiff, Messer
Lorenzo's sometime colleague, the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill
made him Pontifical Secretary, and dignified him with
several canonries including one at St. John i7t Laierano, the
cathedral-church of Rome. So fifteenth-century tact and
mental limberness made a friend, where nineteenth-century
arrogant stupidity made a host of scornful foes.

^ *\[, ^

•TV* "TV* "TV*

The first year of the pontificate of the Lord Calixtus
P.P. Ill was occupied by audiences granted to Orators
offering the homage of the Powers, and by preparations for
the Crusade.

Germany deserved and enjoyed high consideration,
because the ruler of Germany held the title of Romanorum
Imperator Caesar Semper Augtistus Mundi Totms Dominus
Universis Principibus et Populis Semper Venerandus ;
and an understanding between Pope and Emperor, a friend-
ship between Peter and Caesar, was desirable for the peace
and prosperity of Christendom. This friendship, however,
was subject to frequent breaches. Both Papacy and Empire
were exceedingly tenacious of their dignity, willing to con-
sider themselves aa-orieved, or their rigrhts in danger of
encroachment. Each, in fact, was a power of dimensions
so gigantic that intermittent paroxysms of megalomania
were the order of the day. The violence of these attacks was
allayed, from time to time, by cooling lotions in the shape
of concessions. There had been a serious relapse not many
years before, which temporarily had been retrieved by a treaty,
known as the Concordat of the Lord Eug^enius P.P. IV.

At the beginning of His reign, while waiting for the
formal homage of The Pacific Caesar Friedrich IV, the
Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill observed the terms of this Con-
cordat. When the news of His election in April reached
Germany, a Diet of the Empire was held at Neustadt to
appoint Orators,^ and to consider the chances of squeezing

1 The business of these Orators (ambassadors) was conducted more by
means of florid eloquence than by the writing of despatches ; though, of course,
the last was not neglected.

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

fresh concessions, " Now is the time to vindicate our
Hberty, for hitherto we have only been the handmaid of
Holy Church," said Jacob of Trier ; and Caesar Friedrich IV
privately grieved that the Papacy gave him little support in
his difficulties with turbulent sub-sovereigns and subjects.
The celebrated Lord Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de' Piccol-
huomini, Bishop of Siena, poured oil upon the troubled
waters of the Diet. He had lived many years in Germany,
as poet-laureate, orator to Utter Britain^ (Scotland), novelist,
historian, and confidential secretary to Caesar ; and he knew
his Germany. He deservedly was trusted both by Church
and State. He soothed Caesar, saying that the mob was
always inconstant, dangerous, and that a ruler did a vain
thing when he tried to please. He soothed the Diet, saying
that the interests of Papacy and Empire were identical,
and that from a new Pope new favours might be gained.
The Diet named Bishop Enea Silvio, with the jurist Hans
Hagenbach, as orators who were to offer to the Lord
Calixtus P.P. Ill the obedience of the Holy Roman
Empire, and to lay before Him the grievances of Caesar.

The Lord Calixtus P.P. HI was more independent
of Germany than His two predecessors had been ; and
in a position to command, not compromise. The Lord
Eugenius P.P. IV, being in need of temporal support, had
purchased Germany's obedience by secret concessions and
promises of money. The Lord Nicholas P.P. V was privy
to these arrangements, and, feeling bound by them, had
paid His share ; but there was a matter of twenty-five
thousand ducats yet unpaid. The Lord Calixtus P.P. HI
had taken no part in these negotiations. During His
cardinalate. He had had ample opportunities of reckoning up
Caesar Friedrich IV as a feeble, feckless old simpleton,
devoid of moral backbone, whom no concessions ever could
stiffen into any semblance of imperial capacity. The Pope's
Holiness felt that He could do quite well without the
Emperor's Augustitude.

Therefore, when Caesar's Orators arrived in Rome, on
the tenth of August 1455, and prayed for a private audience,
(at which, as the custom was, they would try to squeeze the

' " . . . horribilesque ultimosque Britannos." C. Valerius Catullus XI.

The Kindling of the Fire

Holy Father, making the proffer of their sovereign's
homage dependent upon the Pope's willingness to oblige),
the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill refused to entertain requests
until after the obedience of Germany should have been
received.

The Orators were confounded, so they said, by this
demand ; but, as loyal sons of Holy Mother Church,
(Bishop Enea Silvio was the spokesman), and that scandal
might be avoided, they would give way. Before a public
consistory of cardinals, they presented to the Pope the
homage of Caesar, in an elaborate oration containing no
mention of unpleasant topics, such as the imperial demands
and the Concordat of the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV, but
mainly consisting of a string of formal compliments to the
Supreme Pontiff, and declamations against the Muslim
Infidel. (Pii II. Orationes I, 336,)

After this the Orators could not insist upon the Rights
of Caesar. On his behalf, they might only approach the
strenuous Pope as suppliants appealing to His clemency, as
children begging a father's favour. They had cut the
ground from under their own feet ; and, as Bishop Enea
Silvio knew quite well, that was precisely what had been
intended. The Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill disclaimed any
obligation of paying His predecessor's debts, having other
uses for five-and-twenty thousand ducats ; and the question
of Caesar's rights to nominate to bishoprics, and to have a
share of the tithe about to be raised for the Crusade, should
be considered in due season, said the Pope to the Orators.

.^L. >^ -M"

TV* "1^ "Tr

Meanwhile the Eternal City was engaged in making
ready for war. Immediately after His coronation, the Lord
Calixtus P.P. HI privately proclaimed the Crusade. In
August, He made the same proclamation in public consistory,
and read the following vow : " We, Calixtus the Pontiff,
swear to God Almighty, the Holy and Undivided Trinity,
that We relentlessly will follow the Turks, the enemies of
the Name of Christ, with war, with maledictions, with
interdicts, with execrations, and indeed with every means
in Our power." (Ciacconi II., 981.) This oath in holo-
graph, was constantly before the Pope's eyes during His

33 c

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

pontificate, and was found hang-ing on the wall by His
bedside as an ornament of His chamber when at length He
died.

The infirmities of ag^e chained the Pontiff to His room :
recreation was to Him a thing unknown, for the business of
the Crusade consumed His energies. His firm and unre-
lenting will, set upon this single aim, would brook no
control, no influence. He knew Himself to be the " Ruler
of the World," and He shut His mouth down fast against all
opposition. To the quarrelsome sovereigns of Christendom
He envoyed ablegates charged to reconcile all differences,
to urge the setting aside of private squabbles, of petty
ambitions, in favour of the greater necessity, resistance to
and annihilation of the Muslim Infidel. Through every
Christian country He sent Apostolic Missionaries, curial
bishops and prelates, friars and monks renowned for
eloquence, to preach the sacred duty of fighting against the
enemies of the Christian Faith. On every Christian country
He imposed tax of a tithe to meet the cost of the Crusade.
Archbishop St. Antonino of Florence nobly seconded His
efforts, raising the standard of St. George's rose-red cross,
and preaching like a new St. Bernard. The buildings,
with which the preceding Pontiff had begun to adorn the
city, were stopped, and the swarms of workmen dismissed.
The revenues of the Papal States were applied to the
construction of a fleet of swift galleys for the harrying of
the Turk. Daily the Holy Father descended to St. Peter's
with His Own hands to fix the cross on the breasts of recruits
enlisting. The papal jewels were pawned, and their price
added to the war-chest. The Pope's Holiness trusted much
in Duke Philip of Burgundy : He tried to persuade the
Magnanimous King Don Alonso de Aragona to take the
cross.

In the east of Europe, the black cloud of the Muslim
Infidel advanced continually. Skanderbeg, a chieftain of
romantic past, renowned for military deeds, opposed them.
The fame of his achievements is the one brightness in the
holy war. His army, composed of divers races naturally
antagonistic, only was welded together by the magic of
success or of his personal influence. Such a bond is but a

The Kindling of the Fire

weak one. A cause, that rests upon a single man, will
stand no strain. Presently his Albanians revolted, at a
moment when the Infidel pressed him hard. Defeated, he
withdrew to mountain fastnesses ; and sent couriers to
Rome with an appeal for reinforcement. The Lord
Calixtus P.P. Ill replied with money, wherewith Skander-
beg bought the allegiance of his disaffected troops and
retrieved his position. But on the heels of triumph came
fresh disaster. To avenge some slight, his own nephew
made cause against him, persuaded the Albanians to fresh
revolt, and deserted with them to the Infidel.

•^ -^ ^

•TV* TV* 'TV'

In the nature of human things, every man, in every
rank of life, must submit to some affliction of mind or body.
Has any one ever troubled to inquire what may be the
special affliction proper to the Pope .f* It is loneliness —
utter loneliness — loneliness in a crowd. The Pope cannot
have a friend ; for friendship postulates equality : and who
is the equal of the Pope ? The cardinals who surround
Him are of the faction that opposed His election, or of the
faction that claims favour in return for support. He, Who
sits upon the Throne of Peter, looks down from that pinnacle
upon the peoples, the nations, and the tongues, in His heart
knowing them to be enemies or suitors. What wonder
then that, though His spirit indeed be willing. His humanity
shall crave human sympathy !

This consideration is offered to explain the nepotism of
the Popes of the Renascence. They surrounded Themselves
with men of Their own families ; men bound to Them by
ties of blood and kinship. Being generally of mature age
themselves, They chose Their young relations ; and upon
these They conferred the rank which qualified them to enter
the inner circle of the curia. This action appears to have
been dictated by the natural desire of human man for off-
spring. Certainly a Pope can always create cardinals, who
are to Him as spiritual sons ; but to create cardinals of
those who already are of one's own family is a thing nearer,
a more intimate relation. So the human heart of the
Pope would become rejuvenate, would renew its strength,
would gratify its natural longing for an entourage of

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

creatures in which it might place confidence and trust.
For the cardinal-nephews, loathed by all other cardinals,
owing everything to the Pope, would be bound to Him
and to His interest as by chains of iron. The system is
proved to be liable to abuse. That is the corollary of all
human systems. It is indefensible ; but it is explicable ;
and the foregoing is an attempt only in the direction of
explanation.

On the twentieth of February 1456, at the beginning of
the second year of His reign, the Lord Calixtus P.P. HI
proclaimed to a stormy consistory the creation of three
cardinals, two being His Own nephews, and one the son of
the heir to the crown of Portugal. Let it be remarked that
He did nothing for His son, Don Francisco de Borja,
now a charming and eligible young man of fifteen years.

The Sacred College murmured and objected : but, in
this matter the will of the Pope is law. The new creatures
were : —

(a) Don Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, of the age of
twenty years, celebrated for vigorous physical beauty.
He was son of Dofia Caterina de Borja (sister of the
Pope's Holiness) by her husband Don Juan de Mila, Baron
of Mazalanes. To him the Pontiff gave the scarlet hat,
which He had relinquished on His election to the papacy,
that of Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santi Ouattro
Coronati.

(|3) Don Rodrigo de Lan^ol y Borja, of the age of
twenty-five years, distinguished by that marvellous Spanish
courtliness and magnificence of person which was the theme
of admiration until he died. He was son of Dona Juana
de Borja, (sister of the Pope's Holiness,) by her husband
Don Jofre de LanQol. To him the Pontiff gave the
scarlet hat of Cardinal- Deacon of ban Niccolo in Car cere
Tulliano.

(-y) Don Jayme de Portugal, Archbishop of Lisbon and
son of the Infante Don Pedro de Portugal. To him the
Pontiff gave the scarlet hat of Cardinal- Deacon of Sant*
Eustachio. There appear to have been reasons of state for
the elevation of this young man ; and it was usual for the
reigning Houses of Europe to have one of their junior

The Kindling of the Fire

scions in the Sacred College. The Cardinal of Portugal
lived a retired and saint-like life, distinguished for his
modesty and maiden purity. He died in 1459 at the age
of five and twenty years ; and his tomb, by Messer Antonio
Rossellino, in Samminiato al Monte at Florence, one of the
most exquisite monuments of the Renascence, bears the
touching epitaph :

" Regia stirps Jacobus nomen Lusitana propago,

" Insignis forma, summa pudicitia,
" Cardineus titulus, morum nitor, optima vita,

" Iste fuere mihi : mors iuuenem rapuit ;

" Ne se poUueret, maluit iste mori.

Bishop Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de' Piccolhuomini says
of these creatures in his commentaries, " All are young,
but of an excellent nature." The only concession that the
Pope would make to the objecting cardinals, was the post-
ponement of the ceremonial conferring of insignia until the
ensuing September ; when many of the malcontents vented
vain spleen by quitting Rome.

'^ -7^ tP

This was a year of strife. The peace of central Italy
was disturbed by the bandit Niccolo Piccinino, a bastard of
Visconti ; who, believing the country to be about to be
denuded of armed men, saw an opportunity for self aggran-
disement. He collected mercenaries, and marched against
Siena, a small republic, very loyal to the Holy See, which,
in this age of culture, had destroyed the lovely Aphrodite
of Lusippos in its dread of paganism, and consecrated itself
to Madonna under the title " Sena Ciuitas Virginis."
Meeting the Papal and Milanese forces which were con-
centrating for the Crusade, but quite ready for a little
incidental fighting on the way, Piccinino withdrew to the
mountains. King Don Alonso of the Regno, as usual, was
playing a double part. It did not suit him to show con-
spicuous friendship for the Pope's allies, lest the Lord
Calixtus P.P. Ill should become independent. Stipula-
tions were made favourable to Piccinino ; and, their appeal
to Naples having failed, the Sienesi were forced into a
disgraceful peace with the brigand.

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Sultan Muhammed extended his conquests to Servia, and
prepared to devour Hungary, launching one hundred and
fifty thousand infidels against Belgrade. Fra Jan Capistran's
eloquence and pious zeal roused the Magyars to conscious-
ness of the imminent peril ; Cardinal Bernardino Caravajal,
the ablegate, inspired their patriotism with his wisdom and
devotion ; and Jan Hunniades, the Vaivod of Hungary,
resolved to resist invasion. Confidence in princes was, as
always, vain. The terror-stricken King Wladislaw fled
with his court and his guardian. Count de Cilly, from Buda
to Venice ; and along the valley of the Danube poured the
locust-swarms of Infidels to invest Belgrade. The Vaivod
Jan Hunniades raised an army at his own expense ; whence
came the means, the men, is still unknown, for most im-
portant documents connected with the siege of Belgrade yet
attend discovery : but there was a Magyar army, com-
manded by Jan Hunniades, ministered to by Fra Jan
Capistran, which advanced to relieve Belgrade ; and the
ablegate, Fra Bernardino Caravajal, remained behind at
Buda, by the Vaivod's request, to collect and forward rein-
forcements. On the fourteenth day of siege the Magyars
collided with the Infidels. Already the walls of Belgrade
sorely were shaken : but the arrival of the Vaivod, breaking
the Muslim line and winning a complete victory, put courage
into the hearts of the beleaguered. In three months time,
once more the Muslim concentrated, and on the twenty-first
of July the city suffered a second storm. Jan Hunniades
and Fra Jan Capistran, from one of the towers, directed the
defence. At a crisis in the fray, the heroic friar rushed,
like a second Joshua, through the Christian host, waving
the crucifix and a banner with the sacred monogram
invented by San Bernardino of Siena. Behind him came
the Vaivod with aid. Through breaches in the walls many
times the Infidels streamed in, and always the stream was
dam.med and driven back. Fra Jan Capistran himself led
a squadron of Magyar huszars^ who put to flight the fierce
janissaries of Islam. And, at last, the day was won ; and
the air resounded with the Most Holy Name shouted by

1 Huszar, derived by a roundabout route from Italian cossaro, corsair,
reelance (v. Murray).

The Kindling of the Fire

victorious Crusaders, while Sultan Muhammed, wounded,
was retreating in confusion with the remnant of his conquered
army. Belgrade was relieved.

When the news reached Rome, the Holiness of the
Pope was lying sick, heart-worn, heart-sore, gazing from
His window at the galleys building in shipwrights' yards on
Ripa Grande. The relief of a beleaguered city, even as
late as the last century when decorous indifference was the
fashionable pose, used to cause deliriously human demons-
trations. Men were quite as human in the fifteenth as in
the nineteenth century, less compound, and much more
simple. Belgrade was relieved, and there was joy in
Christendom.

JA, Jf- Jt.

•A- ^ ■t'F

In May the Lord Ludovico Scarampi dell' Arena Mez-
zarota. Archbishop of Florence, Patriarch of Aquileia,
Ablegate to the Regno, Cardinal- Presbyter of tne Title of
San Lorenzo in Damaso, was appointed Admira. of the
Pontifical Fleet. Under the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV, as
Commander-in-Chief of the Pontifical Army, he had used
Rome at his will. Dismissed from office by the Lord
Nicholas P.P. V, he had devoted himself to luxurious
livinpf, and grained the nickname oi the Lord Liicullus. His
haggard but voluptuous profile makes it probable that he
deserved the name. Seeing the Lord Calixtus P. P. Ill to
be an old and feeble man, who conceivably might afford him
new preferment and a fresh field for his insatiable ambition,
he had come to Rome to ofifer his service to the Holy
Father. But the stalwart cardinal-nephews, the Lord
Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title
of Santi Quattro Coronati, and the Lord Rodrigo de Lan9ol
y Borja, Cardinal- Deacon of San Niccolo in Car cere Tul-
liano, distrusted the professions of Cardinal Scarampi.
Suspecting his bonafides, they mentioned their suspicions to
their August Uncle, with the result that he was forbidden
to approach the Vatican. Not to be beaten, Cardinal
Scarampi discovered a fervent zeal for the Crusade. There
could be no surer way into the Pope's favour. His Holiness
considered that this prelate might devote his enormous
fortune to the war-fund ; and He lost no time in receiving

chronicles of the House of Borgia

him in audience, and naming him Pontifical Admiral. The
Cardinal-Nephews urged the advisability of flying him with
a string ; and therefore his authority was restricted. A
man of his fashion and quality could have put in a fine
dignified time ashore. But that would not have suited the
Cardinal-Nephews ; and the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill per-
ceived no siorns of the unbucklin^ of the Cardinal-Admiral's
pouches. So they gave him banquets, and his sailing-
orders. A fleet of transports left the Tiber with five
thousand troops aboard : but the Cardinal-Admiral stayed
in Rome to assure the Pope's Holiness that these were
insufficient for any practical purposes ; and that a fleet of
thirty galleys was absolutely necessary.

Then the strenuous Pontiff remembered that King Don
Alonso had promised to provide Him with such a fleet ; and
it gently and firmly was intimated to the Cardinal-Admiral
that he might go to Naples and collect the same : if he failed
to go, he had the alternative of facing a judicial inquiry into his
doing's as g-eneralissimo under the Lord Eugrenius P.P. IV.
Thereon the Cardinal-Admiral scoured away hot-foot for
Naples ; where he found that King Don Alonso the Mag-
nanimous had belied his promises, having sent the ships to
settle a little private dispute in which his Majesty was
engaged with the Republic of Genoa. This was bad news
for the Pope : but it did not alter His determination by the
breadth of a single hair. He was quite well-used to the
vagaries and magnanimities of the King of Naples, whom
He had known for more than forty years. He was equally
well-resolved to use the services which the Cardinal-Admiral
had volunteered. Men had thought Him to be a feeble old
man who could be influenced with ease. They found out
their mistake. We are accustomed to think of youth as
fiery and headstrong : but what can bend the will of fiery
headstrong age? His Holiness sent imperative commands
to the Cardinal- Admiral that he must make the best of the
ships in hand, and sail for the ^gean Sea, where at least
he could help the Crusade by creating a diversion among
the islands that the Infidels owned there.

* * *

Fresh troubles were at hand in Hungary. Round

The Kindling of the Fire

Belgrade, the putrefying carcases of the Muslim thousands
envenomed the air. The rudiments of antiseptic sanitation
were unknown. Those who have had to do with Boers, or
Cubans, or Filipinos will know the unspeakable horror that
this implies. Pest decimated the Christian army. Plague
swept away the Magyar host, that Infidels in vain had tried
to overcome. When they told him that his end was near,
that Viaticum was approaching to be his strength on that
dark road which man must tread alone, the noble Vaivod
Jan Hunniades, said : " It is not fitting that our Lord should
visit his servant " ; and, rising from his death-bed, he
dragged himself to the nearest altar, where, after confession
and communion, in the priest's hands he fell and yielded up
his great and splendid soul, the eleventh of August 1456. On
the twenty-third of October Fra Jan Capistrano also died.

From Rome came the voice of the Pope strenuously
appealing to the Powers. His ablegates preached in every
country. The common people heard Him gladly, and
responded to His call : but the nobles lent deaf ears. Upper
Germany and Ntirnberg equipped battalions of crusaders,
which were increased by contingents from England and
France.

In November the faineant young King Wladislaw
returned to Hungary, and visited the field of Belgrade.
Since the death of Jan Hunniades the Count de Cilly had
made himself of supreme authority over his royal ward.
Belgrade still was mourning the mighty Vaivod ; and the
nobles under Wladislaw Corvinus, Hunniades's son, resenting
the insolent assumptions and cowardice of De Cilly, slew
him there. The young king concealed his wrath, and
persuaded the sons of Jan Hunniades to follow him to Buda.
All unsuspicious of that treachery of which cowards are
capable they obeyed, and, on arrival in the capital, the
Majesty of Hungary had them seized, and Wladislaw
Corvinus Hunniades publicly beheaded as a traitor.
Hungary was now in woeful plight. Deprived by axe and
pest of those strong leaders who had merited her trust, her
king a venomous child, her throne with no legitimate heir,
she waited, in fear and trembling, to hear again the Infidel
thundering at her gate. All discipline was at an end ; the

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Magyar huszars were disbanded, and returned to their
homes.

^ ^ T*'

In Germany, the question of the Magyar Succession
was reofarded as confusion worse confounded ; and the
Electors of the Empire considered the time a suitable one
for reapplying the screw to feeble needy Caesar Fried-
rich IV, their suzerain.

They invited him to preside at a Diet at Niirnberg,
on St. Andrew's Day, 1456 ; and, indeed, their conduct
throughout was thoroughly Caledonian. Their ostensible
object was the projection of a new crusade ; and they
announced an intention of acting independently if Caesar
should refuse to come. In reality they meant to pit Pope
against Emperor, and Emperor against Pope ; so that, in
the confusion, they might gratify their private ambitions
by snatching concessions from one or other of those Powers.
By pretending to desire a new crusade they would gain
pontifical favour. By taking independent action they
would arouse imperial ire. The Pope might be trusted
to grant them what they called Ecclesiastical Reform in
return for their alliance to His plans against the Infidel.
Caesar mi^ht be trusted to concede extension of their
political power, in return for their allegiance to him as
suzerain. In either case they stood to win something.

Caesar promptly forbade the assembling of the Diet at
Niirnberg. His command was slighted ; the Diet sat, and
was attended by a Papal Ablegate. Purely political dis-
cussions ensued ; and the Diet adjourned before reaching
any conclusion. Then the Elector Albrecht of Branden-
berof found it worth his while to form a stronor Caesarian
party ; and the Electors of the papal faction were left in a
minority. The cry for Church Reform was raised. The
Papacy was threatened with what it was supposed to dread
more than a General Council — viz., a Pragmatic Sanction,^

1 Pragmatic Sanction, term of Byzantine origin, was applied to Imperial
Edicts (To Upayfj-aTiKov) containing decrees issued as Fundamental Laws.
The Decrees of the Council of Basilea were embodied in a Pragmatic Sanction
by the Diet of Mainz, 1434 ; but at the Council of Vienna 1448 most of the
advantages which it intended to secure for the Church in Germany were
abandoned.

The Kindling of the Fire

i.e., a definite assertion of Imperial Supremacy. The
Electors kept their proceedings secret, and little news was
allowed to reach Rome, where the curia was determined
to resist in any case.

The cry for Church Reform is a popular one. The
expression of desire for the cultivation and consummation of
the Christian Ideal invariably wins sympathy. It is, per-
haps, a little unfortunate that the soi-disant reformers of
the fifteenth century attached to the word Reform a baser
meaning than that which it bears in the twentieth.

Rome had her champion ready in the Lord Enea Silvio
Bartolomeo de Piccolhuomini, Bishop of Siena, to whom
she entrusted the task of her defence ; and that he might
be well-armed with all authority, the Pope's Holiness created
him Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina. " No
cardinal ever entered the college with greater difficulty than
I ; rust had so spread over the hinges {cardines, specimen
of fifteenth-century pun) that the door could not turn and
open. Calixtus used battering rams and every kind of
instrument to force it," said the new Cardinal of Siena to
the Lord Giovanni Castelleone, Bishop and Cardinal of
Pavia. (Pii 11. Ep. 195) The Sacred College had not
forgiven the Lord Calixtus P. P. Ill for the creation of the
Cardinal-Nephews ; and its policy was to oppose God's
Vicegerent and all His works. This new creature, too, was
credited with liberal proclivities ; and the conservatism of
the Italian cardinals was up in arms. The Cardinal of
Siena had been so long a resident in Germany that he was
looked upon as more a German than Italian, more of a
friend to Caesar than to Peter. Above all, his transcendent
talents and versatility were excessively distasteful to mere
mediocrity.

The adjourned Diet of Niirnberg resumed its session at
Frankfort-on-the-Main. Here it became definitely hostile
to Caesar ; and, by announcing its intention to resist the
collection of tithe, to the Pope also. It committed the
strategical error of uniting its two enemies by the bond of
a single interest. The Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill instantly
appealed to Caesar Friedrich IV on behalf of the Crusade ;
and so ended the year of grace 1456.

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Let it be conceded that Germany was aggrieved ; that
there were engagements unfulfilled by Rome. What then ?
Rome, and all the world, knew Germany's habit of cla-
mouring for Reform, whenever she saw a chance of being
paid for silence. Rome, and all the world, knew that these
clamours only originated with insincere and venal prelates
and Electors, who would become obsequiously dumb on a
sop being thrown to their personal interests.

The leader of the Electors was the Lord Hans of
Baden, Prince Archbishop of Mainz. His chancellor,
Martin Mayr, in writing congratulations to the Cardinal of
Siena on his elevation, took occasion to be very bellicose
about Papal treatment of Germany. " His Holiness ob-
serves neither the decrees of the Council of Constance, nor
of Basilea, nor the agreements of His predecessors, but sets
the German nation at naught," he said. "Our elections of
bishops arbitrarily are annulled. Reservations are made in
favour of cardinals and papal secretaries. You yourself
have a general reservation of benefices in the provinces of
Mainz, Trier, and Koln, to the value of two thousand
ducats per annum — an unprecedented and unheard-of grant.
Annates rigorously are exacted, grants of expectancies
habitually are given, and his Holiness is not content with
His due. Bishoprics are not given to the most worthy, but
to the highest bidder. Fresh tithes are imposed without
the consent of our bishops, and are paid to the Pope. In
every way Germany, once so glorious, is used as a hand-
maid. For years she has groaned in slavery. Now her
nobles think that the time has come to make her free."

This letter reads like a genuine cry of distress. The
Cardinal of Siena was an adept at dealing with such
dishonesty as this, which would deceive one less expert.
He could read between the lines ; and he knew this
Chancellor Mayr. He began by asserting Papal Supre-
macy, and rejecting the decrees of the schismatic Council
of Basilea. He agreed that the Concordat of the Lord
Euorenius P.P. IV should be observed. He said that the
Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill was willing to redress grievances,
if the Electors would send envoys to lay them before Him
in proper form. So far, nothing could be more satisfac-

The Kindling of the Fire

tory ; and then the Cardinal of Siena got to work. Papal
interference with elections, he said, was purely judicial
intervention, due to the ambition and greed of claimants,
not to papal rapacity. If any payments had been made by
would-be bishops to bribe officials ot the curia, the said
would-be bishops justly could not blame His Holiness, but
their own ambition, which would do anything for its own
aggrandisement. Men were not more angelic in Rome
than in Germany : when money was offered they naturally
took it. But the Holy Father must not be blamed for
that. He wished to stop the extortions of his officials. He
Himself received nothing but His due. Every one thinks it
a grievance to part with money, and will think so always.
Bohemia made the same complaint against Germany as
Germany made against Rome, that money was drained from
the land : yet Germany, owing to her connection with the
papacy, steadily had grown in wealth and importance, and
was richer now than at any previous time, despite of her
complaints. To descend to personal matters, the Cardinal
of Siena thought it very hard that Chancellor Mayr should
object to the provisions which had been made in his
favour. As poet-laureate of the Empire and orator of
Caesar he had lived and laboured in Germany so long, that
he now found it hard to be classed as a stranger. In con-
clusion, he thanked the Chancellor for his personal offer of
help to realise the said pi^ovisions ; and would be glad to know
of any eligible benefices ivhich should fall vacant.

The stingr was in the tail of this letter. It is evident
that, while Martin Mayr was writing for publication his
precious list of grievances, he also was sending to the
cardinal in private a second letter offering his own services
as rent-collector. In theory, he pretended to treat his con-
nection with the Lord Enea Silvio as having no existence.
In practice, he was very anxious to be employed as agent
on commission. To such a venal Janus only one reply was
possible ; and the Cardinal of Siena exposed the worthless
insincerity of Germany's spokesman by answering his private
and his public letters together on the same sheet.

This device, as was intended, provoked a proposition
from Chancellor Mayr's superior, the Prince Archbishop of

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Mainz ; who sent his secretary to Rome on the tenth of
September, 1456, with plenary powers to negotiate with
the Cardinal of Siena towards an alliance with the Pope
against the Electors. This renegade prelate's terms were,
that he was prepared to desert the German party of reform,
if he were conceded the right of confirming episcopal
elections throughout Germany as the price of his treachery ;
a right which would enable him to tax candidates for
bishoprics at his will.

The Cardinal of Siena lashed the Prince Archbishop
with courteous but stinging pen. He rejoiced to hear that
his Hieh Mightiness no lono-er cared to be allied with those
malignants who attacked the Holy Father ; but regretted
that he should ask for that which was a right inherent in
the Papacy, and which none of his predecessors had en-
joyed. No bribe, no secret understanding, was necessary
between God's Vicegerent and His subjects. All were
bound to obey. He was sure that the modesty of the
Archbishop had been misrepresented by this improper re-
quest, which he, for his part, could not dare to lay before a
Pope so blameless and so upright as was the Lord Calixtus.
(Pii 11. Ep. 338)

Now that the venal nature of the cry for reform had been
made clear to all the world, the Cardinal of Siena wrote
eloquently and reasonably to Caesar Friedrich IV, to the
King of Hungary, to the Princes and Prelates of Germany,
pointing out the futility of quarrelling with the Pope, from
Whom they derived so many benefits. (Pii H. Ep. 320,
344, 349.) He also expanded his letter to the discomfited
Chancellor Martin Mayr into a pamphlet called De ritu,
sitUy conditione, et inoribus Germaniae, in which he shewed
that Germany had received from Rome far more than she
ever had given. His wise and irrefragable reasoning, with
the diplomatic skill of the papal envoy Lorenzo Rovarella,
made Germany pause. To pause was to weaken. Then
came the death of King Wladislaw of Hungary on the eve
of his marriage with Madame Marguerite de France. His
dominions in Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, were claimed by
several pretenders. The German Powers became intensely
interested. Their attention was diverted from their at-

The Kindling of the Fire

tempts to blackmail Christ's Vicar. And so the end of
the Lord Calixtus P. P. Ill was attained ; the crisis was
averted without issue of a Pragmatic Sanction.

^ tP ^

Meanwhile the Cardinal Admiral was in the y^gean.
Being neither hero nor enthusiast he merely cruised from
place to place, making a show of activity, capturing a few
unimportant islands from the Muslim Infidel, relieving the
necessities of the Knights of Rhodes. His sole object was
to avoid that judicial inquiry with which the Cardinal-
Nephews had threatened him ; and hence he showed him-
self as but a perfunctory crusader. In fact, his influence was
bad ; for by giving the ^gean islanders the notion that
Rome was their defender, he lulled them into false security
and destroyed their self-reliance.

The plight of Eastern Christendom became more hope-
less. Only the Holiness of the Pope, of all the Western
powers, took any practical measures. France promised,
but failed to keep her word, and would not pay the tithe.
The Duke of Burgundy collected the tithe, and kept it.
Norway, Denmark, and Portugal sat still. The Duke of
Milan and the Republic of Venice disregarded the Pope's
entreaties. The Signoria of Florence refused to help Him.
A few of the Italian barons, tyrants of petty fiefs, provided
him with money and men. The Republic of Genoa was
loyal ; and, in return, the strenuous Lord Calixtus P.P. HI
protected Genoese colonies on the Black Sea littoral, and
conferred honours on her nobles. The dark outlook
momentarily was lightened by a victory over the Muslim
fleet, in which five and twenty galleys became a Christian
spoil. It must be recorded that it was solely the determin-
ation, foresight, and energy, with which the aged Pontiff" in
Rome personally directed naval movements, which inspired
His sailors to achieve this triumph. Had the Cardinal-
Admiral Scarampi been endowed with the plenary authority
which he had desired, very much less enterprising and
successful would have been the policy of the papal fleet.

There can be no doubt but that German captiousness
prevented the accomplishment of the Pope's designs for
the protection of the Oriental Christians. Skanderbeg had

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

but a handful of huszars wherewith to oppose the Muslim
Infidel. And there was no encouragement for him ; for the
apathy of Caesar and the Powers prevented him from
following up his victories. The King of Naples was as a
thorn in the Pope's eye. He had hoped for better things
of His old patron who had brought Him to Italy ; and He
was bitterly enraged by King Don Alonso's treachery in
sending the fleet, which, though constructed in the port of
Naples, had been paid for with papal gold, to carry on a
private quarrel with a Christian Power, the Republic of
Genoa, at the very moment when Christendom was in the
direst peril from, the Infidel.

The forbearance of the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill ended
there, as far as Naples was concerned. Henceforward He
relentlessly opposed the policy of King Don Alonso,
especially his scheme for an alliance with Milan by which
he hoped to make doubly sure the succession of the Bastard
Ferrando, whose legitimation had been recognised by two
preceding Pontiffs.

At the beginning of 1458, Gyorgy Podiebrad renounced
the Hussite heresy on his election to the throne of Bohemia.
King Gyorgy made no difhculty about swearing allegiance
to the Holy See ; and he also promised to take the cross of
the Crusade. Considering that his dominions immediately
were menaced by the Infidel, his policy would appear to
have been dictated by reasons of state rather than by
religious zeal.

The Holiness of the Pope was consoled by this ac-
cession to the thinned ranks of His allies. He hoped that
the example of King Gyorgy would be of good effect to the
Bohemian heretics ; for spiritual matters are not un-
interesting to a Roman Pontiff. It seemed that the occasion
might be used to bring the powers into line ; and He sum-
moned a congress to meet in Rome, whose object was the
Unity of Christendom. Pious men have pursued that
object ever since — the religious unity. In the days of the
Lord Calixtus P.P. HI, political unity was the aim desired,
and striven-for again, in vain.

^ * *

After the Crusade, the work nearest to the Pope's heart

The Kindling of the Fire

was the promotion of His nephews' interests. Why He
should never have done anything for His own most charming-
son remains a historical mystery. The elevation to the
cardinalate of Don Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, and of Don
Rodrigo de Langol y Borja, already has been recorded.
There was a younger brother of Cardinal Rodrigo, younger
by a year and a half, Don Pedro Luis de Lan^ol y Borja,
a gorgeously beautiful sneak and coward, to whom the
Pope extended the envious admiration that feeble age must
feel for youth and strength ; and for whom nothing had
been done. The Lord Calixtus P.P. HI, though quite
independent of the good opinion of the Sacred College,
did not cause a second storm by raising this young man,
also, to the purple. He himself preferred a secular career ;
and it was thought that the hot blood of Borja suited him
to cut a military figure. On that account, his Uncle, in the
capacity of an Italian despot, named him Duke of Spoleto,
Gonfaloniere of the Holy Roman Church, Castellan of all
pontifical fortresses, and Governor of the cities of Terni,
Narni, Todi, Rieti, Orvieto, Spoleto, Foligno, Nocera,
Assisi, Amelia, Civita Castellana, Nepi, and of the
Patrimony of St. Peter in Tuscany, — an extravagance of
generosity which is justifiable solely on the score of good-
will towards His family, which, after long years, an octo-
genarian was able to put into effect. Of course there arose
the usual uproar of protest from the Sacred College, led by
the Lord Domenico Capranica, Cardinal- Presbyter of the
Title of Santa Croce in Geriisalemme ; and something akin
to a riot among the citizens of Rome, who always hated
foreigners, and especially Catalans. For the idea had got
abroad in Spain that in Rome preferment awaited
Spaniards, and thither they flocked to receive the good
gifts which, they imagined, a Spanish Pope would have in
store. Rome was furious at this immigration ; but Borja
made overtures of friendship to Colonna, and treated the
Romans to a display of Spanish arrogance. As for the
strenuous Lord Calixtus P.P. HI, He announced His
defiance of public opinion by installing Don Pedro Luis de
Lan9ol y Borja in the Prefecture of the City, an act which
involved the surrender into Borja hands of the Mola of

49 D

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Hadrian, or Castle of Santangelo, the impregnable fortress
on Tiber which dominates Rome. Don Pedro Luis was
looked upon by Orsini as a mortal foe, on account of his
displacing Don Giovantonio Orsini in this Prefecture.
Thus the inimical relations of Borja with Orsini very
naturally qualified them for an alliance with Colonna, in a
simple age when a man's friends were his friend's friends,
and his enemies his friend's enemies ; and Colonna was the
most powerful house in Rome. A nursery ditty of the
period will show in what esteem Colonna was held :

" Che possa avere cinque figli maschi,
" E tutti quanti di Casa Colonna,
" Uno Papa, Taltro cardinale,
" Ed uno arcivescovo di Colonia,
" Ed uno possa aver tanta possanza

" Da levar la corona al re di Franza
" E I'altro possa aver tanto valore

" Da levar la corona all' imperatore.

So, for a brief space, the Eternal City became absolutely
an appanage of the House of Borja. Catalans pervaded
the streets, engaged in robbery and murder. The intimi-
dated Conservators (equivalent to a modern municipal
council) servilely thanked the Pope for the appointment of
His nephew, and even suggested that Don Pedro Luis
should be made King of Rome.

# # *

On the twenty-seventh of June 1458 died King Don
de Alonso Aragona, The Magnanimous, of Naples, the Two
Sicilies, and Jerusalem. The Lord Calixtus P. P. HI at once
refused to acknowledge His quondam pupil, the Bastard
Ferrando, as successor ; and impetuously threatened to
plunge Italy into war, by declaring on His Own account a
claim to the Regno as a fief of the Holy See.

A favourite policy of ecclesiastical persons of all ranks,
and in all ages, appears correctly to be summarised by
Patrizzi in this formula : — Advance pretensions and pre-
sently they will become realities. The Pope's Holiness
desired to benefit Don Pedro Luis. If His claim, as suzerain
of the Regno, could be substantiated, then He would be able

The Kindling of the Fire

to crown Don Pedro Luis as its King. It was an extensive
and important domain, including the whole of Southern
Italy, the Abruzzi, Apulia, and Calabria, with the Three-
Tongued^ Island of Sicily. From a commercial standpoint^
the Pope's action was distinctly smart and businesslike.
And there was this further consideration : — Supposing that
the Bastard Ferrando were strong enough to make resis-
tance, at least some part of the Regno would have to be
sacrificed as a concession for the sake of peace ; and so a
fief could be created for Don Pedro Luis, who, in any case,
stood to win. Failing the Regno, it was the Pope's inten-
tion strenuously to press the reconquest of Constantinople,
and to crown His nephew King of Cyprus and Emperor of
Byzantium. As an earnest of His good- will He lost no time
in naming him Lieutenant of Benevento and Tarracina
within the Neapolitan boundary, confirming him in this
post by Brief of the thirty-first of July 1458.

In Rome indignation knew no bounds. It was plain
that these strong young men, the pontifical nephews, were,
after the Crusade, all-powerful with the Ruler of the World.
The city seethed with jealousy and revolt, attacking any-
thing in the shape of a Catalan on sight. Spaniards, rash
enough to show themselves in the streets, courted assassina-
tion. As for the Pope, age and mortal sickness seemed to
fan the flame, to white heat, of His inflexible imperious
will. The Cardinal of Santa Croce m Gerusalemme was
banished to distant embassages, and threatened with im-
prisonment if he again broke silence, on account of the
protest which he made. The Apostolic Prothonotary, Fra
Bernadino Caravajal was sent to Germany. The Cardinal-
Admiral Scarampi was kept at sea. Cardinal Latino
Orsini and his faction fled into exile. Only four of the
Most Illustrious preserved their loyalty to the Pope and
the Cardinal- Nephews ; these were : — The Roman Lord
Prospero Colonna, Cardinal- Deacon of San Giorgio in
Velum Aureum ; the Venetian Lord Pietro Barbo,
Cardinal- Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova ; the French Lord
Guillaume d'Estouteville, Cardinal- Bishop of Porto ; and
the Sienese Lord Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de' Piccolhuomini,

1 Sikelian— Greek — Latin.
SI

chronicles of the House of Borgia

Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina. Profiting
by the temporary absence of opposition, the Holiness of
the Pope gave the Bishopric of Lerida to His nephew,
Cardinal Luis Juan of Santi Quattro Coronati ; and to
Cardinal Rodrigo of San Niccolo m Carcere Tulliano he
gave the Vicechancellorship of the Holy Roman Church.

At last, the Bastard of Naples decided on his course of
action ; and summoned the Neapolitan nobles, demanding
their acceptance of him as their king. He made no claim
upon the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia, in
Spain ; nor upon Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, and Sicily,
which King Don Alonso had left by will to his own brother.
King Don Juan of Navarre : but for the crown of Naples
and the Sovereignty of the Order of the Stola, which his
father had founded, he was prepared to fight. Further, in
defence of his right, he appealed from the Pope to a General
Council — a stupid enough proceeding, but one of the
customs peculiar to aggrieved personages of the Borgian
Era. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the Lord
Calixtus P.P. Ill, was not the only disputant of Don
Ferrando's claim. Even supposing that the right of King
Rene of Anjou were set aside, he had a third rival in the
shape of his cousin Don Carlos of Biana, son of King Don
Juan of Navarre.

The Pope knew well that, though He might disturb the
peace of Italy, He, single-handed, could not hope to triumph
in a war with Naples ; and He, therefore, tried to win over
Don Francesco Sforza-Visconti, Duke of Milan, who,
after the Cardinal of Siena, was the greatest and most far-
seeinof statesman of his time. Duke Francesco answered
shortly and sharply, that the Neapolitan Succession had
been settled by the Lord Nicholas P.P. V to the satisfac-
tion of all Italian princes, and that he intended to fight for
King Don Ferrando I. sooner than see his country
devastated by civil war.

This last bitter disappointment caused the collapse of
the Pope's health. With the summer heat plague appeared
in Rome. The Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill lay in the throes
of fever ; and Orsini took up arms against all Catalans in
open war. Of the Pontifical Nephews the layman showed

The Kindling of the Fire

the white feather ; the stalwart cardinals were staunch.
Don Pedro Luis de Langol y Borja, as Prefect of Rome,
sold the Molaof Hadrian to the Sacred College for two and
twenty thousand ducats ; and fled from the city, escorted by
his Catalans. The Cardinal of Venice helped him to a
boat on Tiber, by which means, owing to the darkness of
the night, he reached Civita Vecchia in safety, having
avoided Orsini who watched for him at the gates of Rome.
On the 26th of September, says Lo Spondano, suddenly he
died.

^ •7'? tP

One of the claims of the church is that of a Divine
Promise of Her Maintenance until the end of the world. It
is interesting to the student of history to notice that, from
time to time. Her responsible authorities comport themselves
as though they had no faith in the validity of that predic-
tion. They seem to think that its fulfilment solely depends
upon their own exertions. The strange conviction of the
necessity of his present existence, which is innate in the
ordinary man, is perhaps the explanation of the extra-
ordinary expenditure of energy to avert death, to invalidate
the most fervent and frequent professions of belief in The
Life Of The World To Come, to consolidate human institu-
tions and human plans, which obtains on such occasions
as the close of a prelacy or the end of a pontificate. If
it be true that actions speak louder than words, then
the confusion attendant on a Pope's death must tell a sorry
tale.

On the sixth of August 1458 the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill
lay dying in the Vatican. Rome was in a turmoil.
Colonna and Orsini were sharpening their swords. The
banished cardinals were hurrying back for the ensuing
Conclave. The four loyal cardinals were fortified in their
palaces. Only the Cardinal- Nephews attended at the Pope's
bedside.

The curious privilege which was accorded to these last,
at this period, could not be exercised in the present case.
By the very conditions of their juniority in the Sacred
College, added to the powerful influence which they were
supposed to hold over the reigning Pontiff, the Cardinal-

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Nephews were the objects of intense dislike (to put it mildly)
on the part of their colleagues. Their elevation was an
offence ; their enrichment, a matter for envy ; their indiffer-
ence to opinion, a matter for positive hatred. The only
consolation to the other cardinals, creatures of previous
Pontiffs, which their situation held, was that it must end
with the demise of their creator. When their Pontifical
Uncle ceased to live in this world, the Cardinal-Nephews
sank at once to their proper place in the Sacred College.
Under these circumstances, the said Cardinal-Nephews were
used to make their hay while yet the sun was shining, to
avail themselves of their opportunities for securing a
satisfactory future, as junior cardinals, by the acquisition of
property, real estate, benefices, jewels, or money, at the
pleasure of the Pope. And when their time was drawing
near its close, when their August Uncle was entering His last
agony, it was the custom for the Cardinal- Nephews to
plunder the apostolic palace of any valuables which already
had not passed into their hands. This privilege was their
last chance ; for, at the instant of the Pontiffs death, the
Cardinal-Chamberlain assumes possession as representative
of the curia ; and, in an age when self-aggrandisement was
not less a ruling passion than at the present hour, the prac-
tice was at least connived at, on the principle that every
dog should be allowed to have its day.

But, on the present occasion, there was no plundering
by the Cardinal- Nephews. The fury of the Romans
against all Spaniards made it expedient for them to avoid
the risk of a journey across the City, to their palaces,
encumbered by the mules which bore their spoils. This
would seem to be the human explanation of their presence
in the Vatican, while the Orsini faction made havoc of the
Catalans, and despoiled all who bore arms in the Borgo or
pontifical Region of Rome.

* * *

The learned Dr. Creighton has well said that men of
decided opinions and eminent ability who come to their
power late in life, spend the accumulated passion of a life-
time in the accomplishment of long cherished desires. The
Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill would come into that category.

The Kindling of the Fire

Though He was unenthusiastic regarding the Renascence
of Letters and the Arts, and checked the tremendous
schemes of His predecessor, yet He was by no means
inattentive to the duties involved by His position. He
restored the palace and church of Santi Ouattro Coronati,
because He had occupied them during His cardinalate. He
improved the church of San Sebastiano extra muros
above the Catacomb of San Calixto, in honour of the
saint from whom He took His papal name. He repaired
the church of Santa Prisca, and began the new roof
of the Liberian Basilica on the Esquiline. He employed
the painters, who did not leave Rome on His election, in
painting banners for the Crusade. The Vatican school
of arras- weavers, founded by the Lord Nicholas P.P. V,
was continued, and flourished exceedingly under His
benevolence. He created nine cardinals in the course
of His short pontificate. The Porporati of the Consistory
of the twentieth of February 1456 were named on p. 36. At
the Consistory at Christmas the same year, He elevated to
the purple : —

(a) The Lord Rainaldo Pisciscello, the virtuous and
learned Archbishop of Naples, as Cardinal- Presbyter
of the Title of Santa Cecilia :

(/3) Don Juan de Mella, brother of the celebrated
Franciscan Frat' Alonso de Mella, and a noble
of Spain, Auditor of the Ruota to the Lord
Martin P.P. HI, as Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title
of Sant' Aquila e Santa Prisca :

(7) The Lord Giovanni Castelleone, patrician of Milan,
Legate to Caesar Friedrich IV, and Bishop of
Pavia, as Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of San
Clemente :

(S) The Lord Giacomo di Collescipoli Teobaldi, a
Roman citizen, as Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title
of Santa Anastasia :^

^ Note his epitaph in the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, recorded
by Ciacconi.

" Cardineo Divus Honore Decoravit Calixtus."

Obviously the fifteenth century used " Divus " as Tacitus also used it of
Julius and Augustus; and as the twentieth century would say "the late ."

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

(f) The Lord Richart de Longueil Olivier, Bishop of
Constance, Archpriest of the Vatican BasiHca, one
of the judges at the Rehabilitation of Madame
Jehanne de Lis, the Maid of Orleans, as Cardinal-
Presbyter of the Title of Sant' Eusebio :

(^) The Lord Enea Silvio Bartolomeode' Piccolhuomini,
as Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sa.bina.

The Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill has no share in the evil
reputation which has been cast upon His House. The worst
that has been said of Him is, that He was obstinate, irritable,
and inspired no affection. They were disappointed suitors
who so spoke. The Pope's Holiness used Himself ever
gently to the poor and needy, who found in Him a good
Samaritan. His benefactions to the hospital of Santo
Spirito have been recorded. In His will He left five
thousand ducats to found a hospital in His cardinalitial
palace of Santo Quattro Coronati. His private life was
one of rigid piety, simplest habits, apostolic fervour. He
left one hundred and fifty thousand ducats in the Pontifical
Treasury, which He had collected for the Holy War.

But the whole force of His resourceful and masterful
character was concentrated upon the Crusade, and the
settlement in life of His beloved nephews. On those two
points He would brook no opposition. With the violent
impetuosity of age, of Spanish blood, He was inflexible,
overbearing, inconsiderate, on all matters connected with
these projects. All the ardour, and all the zeal, which He
devoted to the delivery of Christendom from the Muslim
Infidel, was doomed to fail. The Muslim Infidel defiles
Constantinople now. But His dealings with His nephews
produced more permanent results.

Yet " it must always be an honour to the Papacy that,
in a great crisis of European affairs, it asserted the import-
ance of a policy which was for the interest of Europe as a
whole. Calixtus and his successor^ deserve, as statesmen,
credit which can be given to no other politicians of the
time. The Papacy, by summoning Christendom to defend
the limits of Christian civilisation against the assaults of

1 The Lord Pius P.P. II (Enea Silvio).
56

The Kindling of the Fire

heathenism, was worthily discharging the chief secular duty
of the office." (Creighton.)

The Lord Calixtus P. P. Ill died on the sixth of August
1458, in the fourth year of His reign ; and was buried by
four priests in the crypt of the old Basilica of St. Peter-by-
the- Vatican.

Kindling

It has been said that the junior branch of the House of
Borja (which originated in Don Ricardo de Borja, second
son of Don Pedro, Count of Aybar, Lord of Borja, who died
in 1 152), emigrated to the kingdom of Naples, where it
became naturaHsed, and softened its name into the ItaHan
Borgia. From Don Fortunio, the son of the aforesaid Don
Ricardo, descends Don Rodrigo who had two sons : —

(a) Don Romano Borgia, Monk of Vail' Ombrosa and

Bishop of Venafri, A.D. 1300. (Ricchi.)

(/3) Don Ximenes Borgia, Captain in the Army of

Naples, whose son, Don Antonio Borgia, married

Madonna Girolama Ruffola of Naples, and had

issue : —

(a) Don Niccolo Borgia, familiar of King Don

Alonso I, The Magnanimous, Regent of Velletri

141 7, married the Noble Madonna Giovanna

Lamberti of Naples, and had issue

(/3) Don Girolamo Borgia, (detto Seniore)

Reverting to the Senior Branch : —

The career of Don Francisco de Borja, bastard of
Bishop Alonso de Borja of Valencia (afterwards the Lord
Calixtus P.P. Ill), is an unsolved mystery from his birth
in 1441 until 1497

Of the five children of Dona Juana de Borja by her
husband Don Jofre de Lan^ol : —

(a) Dona Francisca married Don Ximenez Perez de

Arenas ;
(/3) Dona Tecla married Don Vitale de Villanueva ;

The Kindling of the Fire

(7) Dona Juana married her cousin Don Guillelmo de
Lan9ol, and had issue : —
Girolama,
Angela,

Pedro Luis (Pierludovico)

Juan (Giovanni seniore)

(g) Don Rodrigo, Vicechancellor-Cardinal- Deacon of

San Niccolo in Carcere Tulliano . . .

(t) Don Pedro Luis, Duke of Spoleto, Castellan of
Santangelo, Prefect of Rome, died on the twenty-
sixth of September 1458, leaving two bastards : —

Juan (Giovanni giuniore)

Silvia, married Don Alonso Gomiel.

Of the two children of Dofia Caterina de Borja by her
husband Don Juan de Mila, Baron of Mazalanes : —

(a) Don Luis Juan, Cardinal- Presbyter of Santi Quattro
Coronati, Bishop of Lerida, retired to his diocese
on the death of his August Uncle and Creator, and
lived there secluded till his death in 1507. (The
career and character of this prince of the church,
cardinal at twenty, bishop at twenty-three, and
during those three years living in the very arcana
of the pontifical court ; who then thought fit to
bury himself in a remote university city during half
a century, while his nearest kin were ruling Europe
and Christendom, awaits, and should repay, in-
vestigation.)

/3 Dofia Adriana came to Italy, married Don Luigi
Orsini, and had issue Don Orso Orsini

'tP ^ ^

The chief personage of the House of Borja, on the death
of the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill, was Cardinal Rodrigo, of
the age of twenty-seven years.

His position was a precarious one ; and it is perfectly
amazing that he was not forced to follow his cousin, the
Cardinal de Mila, into permanent retirement. That he was
able, not only to remain in Rome but to carve out for him-
self a unique career there, undoubtedly is due to those

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

superb talents and alert vigour of character which have
made him such a prominent figure in history.

He had only two friends in Rome, the Cardinal Enea
Silvio of Siena and the Cardinal-Archdeacon Prosper©
Colonna. Quite unmoved by the hatred of the other
Purpled Ones, he entered the Conclave of 1458 for the
election of the new Pope, with no such stupid thing as a
plan of action ; but with a determination to comport him-
self so, according as opportunities arose, as to improve his
position and his prospects. It was impossible to know
beforehand what steps he would have to take : he could
be guided only by circumstances. To a young man of such
temper the gods send opportunities. There arrived a dead-
lock in the Conclave ; and of that deadlock Cardinal
Rodrigo seized the key.

There are five ways by which a Pope may be elected : —

(a) By Compromise — i.e., when the cardinals appoint a
committee of themselves with power to name the
Pope :

()3) By Inspiration — i.e., when a number of cardinals put
themselves to shout the name of some cardinal, as
"The Cardinal-Prior-Presbyter is Pope," or " The
Cardinal-Archdeacon is Pope ; " by which method
of shouting other voices are attracted, and the
minimum majority (of two - thirds plus one)
attained :

(7) By Adoration — i.e., when the minimum majority (of
two-thirds plus one) of the cardinals go and adore
a certain cardinal :

{t) By Scrutiny — z.^., when each cardinal secretly records
a vote :

(t) By Accession — i.e., when, the scrutiny having failed
to give the minimum majority (of two-thirds plus
one) to any cardinal, the opponents of that cardinal,
whose tally is the highest, shall accede to him.

In the Conclave of 1458 the method of Compromise was
not used, and no cardinals were moved to proceed by
Inspiration or to Adoration. Votes were taken by the

The Kindling of the Fire

Scrutiny, which revealed an extraordinary state of things.
The French Cardinal d'Estouteville had a certain number
of votes ; the Cardinal Enea Silvio of Siena had a higher
number ; but neither had the minimum majority. The
cardinals sat upon their green or purple thrones, beneath their
green or purple canopies, watching and waiting for a sign.

Then the young Cardinal-Vicechancellor Rodrigo de
Lan9ol y Borja rose up and proclaimed : " I accede to the
Lord Cardinal of Siena." His friend and ally, the Cardinal-
Archdeacon Prospero Colonna, followed him : "I accede to
the Lord Cardinal of Siena." Cardinal Teobaldi, who, as a
Roman citizen, followed Colonna, said also : " I accede to
the Lord Cardinal of Siena." The three lowered their
green and purple canopies. They were in the presence of
the Pope, in Whom all authority resides, before Whom none
may remain covered. The minimum majority had been
attained. The Lord Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de' Piccol-
huomini, sometime Caesar's ambassador in "the horrible
and ultimate Britains " (Scotland), sometime poet laureate,
novelist, historian, bishop, and cardinal, had become the
Lord Pius P.P. II.

By this act, which practically gave the proud triregno
to his friend, the Cardinal-Vicechancellor put himself into
high favour with the new Pontiff, Whose enchanting
temperament delighted in the brilliance and aptitude of the
Borgia, and made his future the object of especial interest.
# # #

Materials for the history of Cardinal Rodrigo during
this reign are but scanty, in the absence of opportunities for
original research. In 1459, he went a-holiday-making with
the Lord Pius P.P. II, on a triumphal progress through
Florence ; where the Holy Father chatted with a lovely boy
of seven years, called Lionardo da Vinci, bastard of a
Florentine notary and a contadina. They visited Siena ;
and Corsignano, where the Pope's Holiness was born, which
He was pleased to rename Pienza, in honour of His papal
name, and to build there a cathedral, an episcopal palace,
and the Piccolhuomini palace for His Own family on the
three sides of the public square. By way of showing His con-
fidence in the Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon (Arch-

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

deacon vie e Cardinal Prospero Colonna), perhaps, also, to
curb, with useful employment, the exuberance of manlihood
which had been giving evidence of revolt against the
convenances, the Lord Pius P.P. II left the superintendence
of these buildings in the hands of Cardinal Rodrigo, who
has not scrupled to adorn their fa9ades with the armorials
of the House of Borgia, Or, a bull passant gules on a field
flory vert, within a bordure gules semde of flaminels, or.

Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon Rodrigo had lived
the life of a gallant handsome prince and man of the world
of the fifteenth century, in no wise differing from his
antitype of the twentieth. The Renascence had brought
about an age when sensuousness degenerating into sen-
sualism was found in prominent places. It is difficult to see
what else was to be expected. " Ye can not serve God and
Mammon." Learning and art essentially, radically, and
necessarily are antagonistic to Christianity, hard though
that saying may be found. Towards them the Church's
policy always has been a policy of compromise. " You may
learn the wisdom of the world, but you may not learn all,"
She says ; trying to serve God, paltering the while with
Mammon. " Nudus, Nudum Christum sequens " went
Beato Fra Francesco when he renounced the world ; and
the Church compromises with St. Sebastian for Phoibos
Apollon. Therefore, as long as Grace and Nature are
served up on the same dish, it is stupidly unreasonable to
hold up holy hands in horror when high ecclesiastical digni-
taries happen to comport themselves like human beings.

The twentieth century is no whit more chaste than the
fifteenth, and can ill afford to cast a stone. Nor was the
fifteenth century the stew of universal depravity which
some would have us believe it to have been. It was un-
moral as the twentieth is immoral. But there were pure
and maid-white souls then, as there are now ; and the
difference between the fifteenth century and the twentieth
is a mere difference of fashion. Now, we pretend to be
immaculate ; then, they bragged of being vile. Much of
the literature of the fifteenth century is most suitably pre-
sented in the original. Poets and historians, especially
historians, allowed little scope for exercise of the imagina-

~>^

t^^^U-c/<&tcc££^ JJT (j^^^-^i.^^.c?ty.

The Kindling of the Fire

tion. The convention of concealment, of suggestion, had
not been invented. Messeri Stefano Infessura and Bene-
detto Varchi rank among the most eminent chroniclers of
their day ; certainly the Latin of the one, and the Tuscan
of the other, would serve for models : but a complete un-
bowdlerised translation of the former's Journal of Roman
Affairs (Diarium Rerum Romamt7}t), or of the latter's
Florentine History {Storia Fiorentina), incontinently would
be suppressed by the police. Yet it would be absurd to
conclude that these writers, or others of their kidney, have
given a just account of the morals of their age. ** The
divorce court and the police news do not reflect the state of
morality in England. No more do Juvenal's Satires give
us a complete or impartial picture of Roman society. We
must read side by side with them the contemporary letters
of Pliny, which give a very different picture, and also weigh
the evidence offered by inscriptions." (E. G. Hardy.
Satires of Juvenal, p. xliv.) That is the spirit in which the
student of the fifteenth century should approach his task.
He will read all, and hear all sides, and form his own con-
clusion, which, at best, must be a faulty one, until the secrets
of all hearts are known.

The Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon was a human
being. If he were, as Caspar Veronensis describes him
at a later date, "a comely man, of cheerful countenance and
honeyed discourse, who gains the affections of all the
women he admires, and attracts them as the loadstone
attracts iron," what must he have been in the glow of his
superb youth ? This is not by any means a suitable repu-
tation for a churchman ; and only its non-singularity
prevents it from being a disgraceful one. Viewed from a
theological stand-point. Cardinal Rodrigo's carnal lusts
are, of course, wholly indefensible : but this work is an
attempt at the study of certain human beings prominent in
history ; and not a theological treatise nor an act of the advo-
catusdiaboli. The Lord Pius P.P. H has said, " If there are
good reasons for enjoining celibacy of the clergy, there are
better and stronger auguments for insisting on their mar-
riage"; and that Supreme Pontiff was far and away the wisest
and most observing man of His Own (or perhaps of any) time.

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Therefore, it Is suggested that, knowing of the pro-
divities of Cardinal Rodrigo, being in truth his firm friend,
desirous that he should live up to the obligations of his
rank, and, above all, actuated by a sense of duty as Christ's
Vicar, the Pope's Holiness set him to supervise the buildings
at Pienza — to keep him out of mischief

In 1460 was born Don Pedro Luis de Borja, bastard of
the said Cardinal-Archdeacon and a spinster (soluta). The
child was openly acknowledged and honourably reared.

About this time the Lord Pius P.P. II wrote a letter,
to remonstrate with Cardinal Rodrigo and with the Lord
Giacopo Ammanati, Cardinal- Presbyter of the Tide of San
Crisogono, concerning their divergences from ecclesiastical
discipline. It is a genial and paternal letter, in which frank
hatred of Sin is displayed with affection for the sinners.
Cardinal Rodrigo replied, correcting some mis-statements
of fact : but, that the Pope's Holiness was not satisfied,
appears from a second letter of a firmer and more admonitory
nature. Much has been made of this correspondence by
some writers, whose pose is to think ungenerously of
ecclesiastics. It should be noted, however, that the Lord
Pius P.P. II took exception to certain long visits which
those cardinals paid to ladies of their acquaintance, and to
nothing more. Apparently there was nothing more of
which to complain ; and the fact that the Pope's Holiness
should deem these visits to be indiscretions on the part of
ecclesiastics, goes to prove rather the extreme and strict
solicitude of the Holy Father for the spiritual welfare of his
flock, than any dissolute conduct of the two cardinals. But
the defamers of Cardinal Rodrigo misrepresent the said
visits in the worst possible light, as nocturnal orgies and
debaucheries ; and long night visits obviously would con-
stitute a grave and serious scandal. The misrepresentation
very likely is due to careless ignorance. The fact is, that
the Italian method of computing time in the fifteenth
century is deceptive to the superficial student. Something
is known of the dials of Italy which count the hours up to
24 o'clock ; and when it is said that Cardinal Rodrigo paid
visits to ladies in their gardens " from the 17th to the 22nd
hour," instantly cynical carelessness predicates nocturnal

The Kindling of the Fire

orgies. But when it is understood that, in the fifteenth
century, the first hour began at half an hour after sunset,
and that the visits took place in time of summer, it will be
realised that Cardinal Rodrigo simply went to the mid-day
dinner, and left his friends an hour and a half before sunset:
which may have been indiscreet, but certainly was not
essentially criminal, as some would have us believe. But
when the careless or wilful calumniator sets out to ruin a re-
putation, he finds it an easy thing to twist a fault into a crime.

The Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon is recorded to
have astonished Rome with the splendour of the arras
adorning the outside of his palace on the Festival of Corpus
Domini, 1461. The buildings at Pienza occupied him
through 1462. Of 1463 there is no history with which he
is connected.

In 1464 " an aged man, with head of snow and trembling
limbs," took the rose-red cross in the Basilica of St. Peter
at Rome. This was no other than the Sovereign Pontiff,
the Lord Pius P.P. II, unique in all history. Who, as an
example to the apathetic potentates of Christendom, went,
dying as He was, a crusader against the Muslim Infidel.
Cardinal Rodrigo was in attendance upon His Holiness in
that terrible journey in parching summer heat across Italy
to the Adriatic ; where, while waiting for the fleet, at
Ancona, in August, the Lord Pius P.P. II died. Cardinal
Rodrigo, stricken by fever there, unable to return to Rome
for the Conclave, was obliged to forego his official privi-
lege as Cardinal-Archdeacon, the crowning of the Lord
Paul P.P. II on the sixteenth of September.

This Pontiff (lately the Lord Pietro Barbo, Cardinal 01
Venice) wished, on His election, to take the name Formosus,
in allusion to His handsome person. It was a naive age,
when men hid neither their vices nor their virtues ; and the
story possibly may be true: but it is very likely to be one of
the spiteful little distortions of motive, which ecclesiastics of
all ages are wont to ascribe each to other. The Popes, after
the first six centuries, have never shown much originality in
choosing Their pontifical names, and generally fall back
upon the name of one of Their immediate predecessors. At
present the changes are rung upon Pius, Leo, and Gregory;

65 E

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

the fifteenth century had a wider range : but many of the
lovely old names, such as Anacletus, Fabian, Felix, Sil-
vester, Hadrian, Victor, Evaristus, were buried in oblivion.
It is far more kind to suppose that the Lord Cardinal
of Venice had the idea of reviving the beautiful name of the
Lord Formosus P.P., Who reigned from 891 to 896, and was
the hundred and twelfth Pope from the Lord St. Peter P.P.
Persuaded against this course by the cardinals. He spent
two hundred thousand fiorini d'oro on a triregno set with
sapphires ; built St. Mark's Palace (Palazzo Venezia) at the
end of the Corso in Rome ; and instituted carnival races of
riderless horses (called Bdrberi, as a pun upon his name),
and of Jews heavily clothed in garments of thick wool and
stuffed to the throat with cake. In 1467 was born Madonna
Girolama de Borja, bastard of the Vicechancellor Cardinal-
Archdeacon, by an unknown mother. The child was openly
acknowledged and honourably reared. During this reign
Cardinal Rodrigo remained in favour ; and, on account of
his fine presence and habitude to curial manners, he was
chosen to receive, at Viterbo, Caesar Friedrich IV, The
Pacific, coming on a state-visit to the Pope in 1469.

At the death of the Lord Paul P.P. II, Cardinal
Rodrigo de Lan9ol y Borja, Cardinal Guillaume d' Estoute-
ville, and Cardinal loannes Bessarione were the only
foreigners in the Conclave of 1471. Once more the Vice-
chancellor-Cardinal-Archdeacon was clever enough to put
a Pope under an obligation, by leading an accession to
Cardinal Francesco della Rovere, who thereby was elected,
and chose to be called the Lord Xystus P.P. IV. All the
chroniclers save one allege that this Pope owed His elec-
tion to the accession of Cardinals de Borja, Orsini, and
Gonzaga of Mantua, who reaped rich rewards in the shape
of benefices and preferments. The Pope's Holiness gave
to Cardinal Rodrigo the wealthy Abbey of Subjaco in
comniendam ; who left a memorial of his abbatial tenure in
the tower which he added to the castle of Subjaco, where
the armorials of the House of Borgia still remain. The
last official act of Cardinal Rodrigo, as Archdeacon of the
Holy Roman Church, appears to have been the coronation of
the Lord Xystus P.P. IV on the twenty-fifth of August 147 1.

The Kindling of the Fire

After that he was ordained priest, and consecrated bishop,
and elevated to the rank of Cardinal- Bishop of Albano, one
of the seven sub-urban sees. He continued to hold the
Vicechancellorship ; and, in this capacity, he built for him-
self in Rome a palace on Banchi Vecchi, which, even in that
sumptuous epoch, excited extravagant admiration. A little
less than a third of it is now the huge Palazzo Sforza-
Cesarini on Piazza Sforza-Cesarini, nearly opposite to the
Oratory, called Chiesa Nuova. Since the unification of Italy
in 1870, a new wide street (Corso Vittoremanuele) has been
driven through the city, necessitating the demolition of
more than two-thirds of Cardinal Rodrigo's building, and the
construction of an undistinguished modern facade on the
modern street : but the remaining courts, whose frontage is
still on Banchi Vecchi, are more or less in statu quo. The
history of the passing of this palace into the hands of
Sforza-Cesarini belongs to a later page.

On the twenty-third of December 1471 Cardinal Rodrigo
was sent as Legate a latere io Spain, to preach a new Crusade
against the Muslim Infidel. It is a curious thing that
while he was unpopular in Italy on account of his Spanish
origin, he was unpopular also in Spain where they con-
sidered him an Italian ; a most ridiculous confusion, for
Don Rodrigo de Lan9ol y Borja was a pure Spaniard by
birth, descent, aspect, character, tastes, and habit, and so
continued until his life's end, in no way influenced or modi-
fied by his long residence in Italy. During his absence,
the Lord Xystus P.P. IV built the Xystine Chapel of the
Vatican ; and called to Rome, from the gardens at Florence
of Lorenzo de' Medici his patron, the vivacious and bizarre
Messer Alessandro Filipepi (nicknamed Botticelli), wondrous
pupil of Fra Lippo Lippi, of Masaccio, of Beato Giovan-
gelico da Fiesole, to decorate its walls with frescoes in
tempera, the colours of which are mixed with the yelks of
country-laid eggs for the deeper tints, and of town-laid eggs
for the paler tints, according to the rules of Messer Cennino
Cennini who wrote in 1437. In 1471 the bronze antique,
known as // Spinario, was found on the Capitol.

About this time the Lord Rodrigo de Lan9ol y Borja,
now Cardinal- Bishop of Porto, Vicechancellor of the Holy

Chronicles of the House ot Borgia

Roman Church, and of the age of three and forty years,
maintained irregular relations with Madonna Giovanna de'
Catanei, a Roman lady, born the thirteenth of July 1442, and
of the age of thirty-two years, wife to one Don Giorgio della
Croce, Whether her husband was used to trade in his
wife's favours (like the criminal who, as late as 1780, was
marched through Rome wearing a pasteboard mitre labelled
cornuto voluntario contentd), is a matter for conjecture. But,
in 1474, Madonna Giovanna gave birth to a son, Don
Cesare, who is called Borgia ; and it is claimed that Cardinal
Rodrieo was his father. As far as historical research has
gone, no evidence has been found to prove that Cardinal
Rodrigo ever directly denied paternity ; and, as he was
undoubtedly deeply in love with Madonna Giovanna, and
intimate with her during ten subsequent years, it is probable
that his reticence was actuated by kindly feelings. But
there is a very strong suspicion that another cardinal, in
every way the notorious and life-long rival of Cardinal
Rodrigo, was the father of this child ; and many mysterious
historical inconsistences would be explained by the establish-
ment of the truth of this suspicion. However, for the
present, merely the birth in 1474 of Don Cesare (detto
Borgia) is recorded, and the question of his paternity will
be examined at a proper place.

In 1475 Madonna Giovanna de' Catanei bore, to
Cardinal Rodrigo, Don Juan Francisco de Borja, to whom
(after the death in 1481 of Don Pedro Luis de Borja) his
father ever gave the honours and the affection which are
due to an eldest son and heir. This is the most important
circumstantial evidence against Don Cesare 's right to the
name of Borgia.

In January of the same year. Cardinal Rodrigo was
deputed, with a nephew of the Lord Xystus P.P. IV, one
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who, as a lad, had peddled
onions in a boat between Arbisola and Genoa, to welcome
King Don Ferrando I of Naples at Tarracina, on the
occasion of his state-visit to the Holy See. Three days
later. Cardinal Rodrigo said mass for his Majesty at San
Paolo extra muros when the king was leaving for Colonna's
fief at Marino, where English envoys from King Edward IV

The Kindling of the Fire

Plantagenet, who had just conferred the Most Noble Order
of the Garter upon Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti of
Milan, were waiting with a similar attention for the King
of Naples.

On the tenth of June 1476 the plague appeared in
Rome, and the Lord Xystus P.P. IV, attended by Cardinal
Rodrigo, removed His court to Viterbo, where cooler air
lessened the danger of contagion.

In 1478 was the hideous Conspiracy of the Pazzi at
Florence, which created no small stir in all Italy. Also in
this year Madonna Giovanna de' Catanei bore, to Cardinal
Rodrig-o, Madonna Lucrezia Borg^ia.

On the first of October 1480, " Xystus, Bishop, Servant
of the servants of God, to His beloved son Cesare (de Borja),
a scholar of the age of six years," sent "greeting and the
Apostolic Benediction," and dispensed him from the
necessity of proving the legitimacy of his birth ; a rule
which must be observed (in the absence of a dispensation)
by whoever shall wish to become eligible for ecclesiastical
benefices.

In 1481 died Don Pedro Luis de Borja, the eldest
bastard of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Rodrig-o. He was
of the age of twenty-one years, and betrothed to a mere
child, the Princess Dona Maria de Aragona. Also, in
1 48 1, Madonna Giovanna de' Catanei bore, to Cardinal
Rodrigo, Don Gioffredo Borgia.

On the twenty-fourth of January 1482, Madonna Giro-
lama Borgia, bastard of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal by an
unknown mother, was married, at the age of fifteen years, to
Don Giovandrea Cesarini, scion of a Roman baronial house
of Imperial origin. The same year, on the sixteenth of
August, the Lord Xystus P.P. IV named Cardinal Rodrigo
administrator of all benefices that should be conferred upon
Don Cesare (detto Borgia) until the latter reached the age
of fourteen years. There is a second brief of this date,
from "Xystus, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, to
His beloved son Master Cesare (de Borgia)," naming the
child Canon of Valencia and " Our Notary " ; little bits of
preferment producing sufificient revenues for his education.
These three briefs relating to Don Cesare, are found in the

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Secret Archives of the Dukes of Osuna and Infantado,
whose line was extinguished in 1882 at the death of Don
Mariano (v. suggested genealogical tree).

In 1484 died the Lord Xystus P.P. IV, and the
Genoese Cardinal Cibo ascended the papal throne under
the tide of the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII.

>;^ ^ ^

During the six and twenty years that had elapsed
between the death of the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill and the
accession of the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, the position of
the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Rodrigo considerably was
changed. Then, he was a young man with only two
friends ; a junior Cardinal- Deacon surrounded by a host of
enemies. Now he was in his ripe maturity, senior member
of the Sacred College, Dean of the Cardinal- Bishops, Vice-
chanceilor of the Church, powerful enough to be able to
command as many friends as he might choose to have — and
rich enough to buy ; rich beyond the richest of that rich
age, from the revenues of his numerous benefices ; and in
rank second only to the Pope Himself To such a man,
with the paramount ambition and magnificence of Cardinal
Rodrigo, only one thing in all the world remained for him
to do. He deliberately set himself to capture the triregno.

There is no chronicle of his history during the eight
years' reign of the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII. Evidently
he withdrew himself from the public life of the curia, from
the splendour of legations, to nurse his revenues, to ingra-
tiate himself with those who, in the next Conclave, would
hav^e the crowning or the crushing of his hopes. With the
wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove he
was to build his house : but, first, like the prudent man, he
counted the cost. Cardinal Rodrigo was far too polished a
diplomatist, far too keen a man of business, to neglect long
and meticulous preparation. He perfectly knew his century —
indeed, as an organiser, he would have been illustrious in
any century — ; and, with wisest generalship, he made ready
his forces against the striking of the hour for action. The
smoothness with which the machinery ran in the Con-
clave of 1492, makes it plain, to the least experienced
student of human affairs, that a master-mind had designed

The Kindling ot the Fire

the gear, to ensure a minimum of friction and an exact
performance.

In September 1484 the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII
named Don Cesare (detto Borgia), who was now of the age
of ten years. Treasurer of the Cathedral of Cartagena
(Carthago Nova).

In 1485, the year of the supposed murder in England of
Kingr Edward V Plantagrenet and of his brother Duke
Richard of York, there died in Rome Don Giorgio della
Croce, husband of Madonna Giovanna de' Catanei. On
the seventh of June i486 she married Don Carlo de Canale,
a noble of Mantua, and from this time her irregular rela-
tions with Cardinal Rodrioro ceased. In an ag-ewhen trade
was not considered disgraceful, except for patricians, when
even the greatest artists kept shops (not studios by way of
compromise, but regular shops, botteghe, like the black-
smiths or the cobblers), it is not shocking to know that
Madonna Giovanna owned an inn in the Region of Ponte.
This does not mean that she performed the duties of a female
boniface. She was a very great lady, bien-vue in Roman
society, with a lovely villa near San Pietro ad Vincula ;
but she certainly drew a comfortable income from the Lion
Inn (Albergodi Leone), opposite the Tordinona, in the Via
del Orso, which was then a street of inns for foreigners.
The Tordinona, from whose upper window dangled a per-
manent and generally tenanted noose for evil-doers, has now
disappeared : but the cavernous cellars of the Lion Inn,
formerly filled with wine on which, by pontifical favour, no
tax was levied, remain exactly as they were when the Spanish
cardinal's mistress was their owner.

Deprived of the society of Madonna Giovanna de'
Catanei, Cardinal Rodrigo, in the fifty-fifth year of his age,
amused himself with the high-born maiden, Madonna
Giulia Farnese, nicknamed in Rome La Bella, who was
betrothed and afterwards married to Don Orso Orsini, him-
self of Borgian descent (v. suggestion for a genealogical
tree). A faded representment of her marvellously brilliant
beauty may be seen in the mannered fresco by Messer
Bernardo Betti (detto Pinturicchio) in the Borgia Tower of

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

the Vatican, where she was painted as Madonna ; or on the
tomb of her brother Alessandro (afterwards the Lord Paul
P.P. Ill) in the BasiHca of St. Peter, where she was
sculptured in marble by Messer Guglielmo della Porta as a
naked Truth (clumsily draped, after an erotomaniac Spanish
student of theology had taken the statue for Lucian's goddess
Kuthereia). The fruit of her early intrigue with Cardinal
Rodrigo was Madonna Laura, detto Orsini,born in 1489, and
adopted by Don Orso Orsini, the husband of Madonna Giulia.

The reign of the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII is notable
for the extreme of lawlessness into which lax government
had let Rome fall. The Sovereign Pontiff was a family
man. Who openly acknowledged the paternity of seven
bastards, and Whose chief concern appears to have been
their settlement in life. A son, Don Franciotto Cibo, a
silly avaricious weakling. He married to Madonna
Maddalena, daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici ; His daughter
He married to Messer Gheraldo Usodimare, a rich merchant
of Genoa ; the wedding-feast took place at the Vatican, the
Pope's Holiness presiding ; and so the world was made to
lose sight of the high ideals of the Papacy, as exemplified
by the Lord Pius P.P. II, and to regard the Supreme
Pontiff in the light of a mere monarch, a mere man. Car-
dinal Piero Riario, in 1473, had bargained with Duke
Galeazzo Maria Sforza-Visconti of Milan to create him
King of Lombardy, in return for money and troops, by the
aid of which he himself might ascend the papal throne, his
uncle, the Lord Xystus PP. IV being willing to abdicate in
his favour : and, but for the sudden death of Cardinal Piero,
this abominable scheme would not have lacked completion.

Nicholas had been a scholar and a gentleman ; Calixtus,
a zealous strenuous champion of an impractical cause ;
Pius, a gentle saintly genius and skilful statesman ; Paul, a
noble figure-head ; Xystus, a plebeian nepotist ; and Innocent
was a lethargic paterfamilias. Naturally the condition of
a kingdom, under such a series of sovereigns (considering
the Popes in their temporal, and not in their spiritual
capacity), would go from bad to worse.

Yet Letters and the Arts were flourishing, as in the
golden reign of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V. Canon Angelo

The Kindling of the Fire

Ambrogini (detto Poliziano) was showing, in his fine hymn
In Divarn Virgineni, that it is possible to write Christian
verse in Latin good as Golden ; and in his 'EpwrtKoj/ Awpia-Ti
and 'EpwTiKov n-epi Tov xpvcroKofiov that a clergyman of the
fifteenth century, whose Greek was not learned at school or
college, could indite as dainty verses as Theokritos. Can
the twentieth century visualise the fifteenth ? Can the
twentieth century realise how poor the fifteenth was in
material which every board-school boy may have to-day for
the asking? The title of the book " De Omnibus Rebus
et Quibusdam Aliis," provokes a guffaw now. Then it was
used in sober earnest ; for, then, it was possible for one man
to know all that was known — so little was there known in the
fifteenth century. Dante Alighieri knew all, at the begin-
ning of the fourteenth. Lionardo da Vinci knew all at the
beginning of the sixteenth — literally all. Go and look at
his manuscript note-books, and see what divers things he
knew, to what depth of knowledge he had delved, how
ingenious an application he made of the wisdom that he had
gained; his inventions of conical bullets, of boats with
paddle-wheels, of flying machines, of a cork-apparatus for
walking on water. Consider that he was machinist, engineer,
architect, and mathematician, constructor of artillery, fortifi-
cations, canals, and drains ; and that, incidentally, he painted
pictures, the lost " Cenacolo " at Milan, which the whole
world knows — lost, because Messer Lionardo made the
experiment of painting fresco in oil. Mark, too, in the
note-books, how artfully and easily he wrote from right to
left, to keep his knowledge from vulgar superficial eyes that
pried. Mark his fluent gesture, his decisive master-strokes,
and the little illuminating diagrams with which he illustrated
every page. Can the twentieth century understand that
the Italian mind of the fifteenth, in the absence of material,
was concentrated on workmanship } Hence the marvels of
handicraft which we use for models now, carving, metal-
work, and textile design. The workmanship was everything
then, in Art and in Letters also. "So long as the form
was elegant, according to their standard of taste, the latinity
copious and sound, the subject-matter of a book raised no
scruples. Students of eminent sobriety, like Guarino da

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Verona, thought it no harm to welcome Boccadelli's Herma-
phroditus with admiration ; while the excellent Nicholas V.
spent nine days perusing the filthy satires of Filelfo."
(Symonds Renascence II. 574.) The workmanship was
everything. The civilisation of the fifteenth century was
as high as that of the twentieth, in conception and produc-
tion of the beautiful. But clearly let it be realised that
"civilisation has nothing to do with morality or immorality";
that "great reformers generally destroy the beautiful";
that "high civilisation is generally immoral." The age of
the Renascence, which found nothing shameful in the pro-
fession of the yalpa (if we may judge from the epitaph of
one, Imperia, Cortisana Romana, quae digna tanto nomine,
rarae inter homines for^nae specimen dedit. Vixit a. XXV J.
d. XII . Objit MDXL. die XV. Aug.), though free from the
hypocrisy engendered by the German Reformation of a later
date (which the maxim "Si non caste tamen caute " so
admirably describes), was frankly and unblushingly un-
moral, as far as a proportion of its leaders was concerned.
Yet its unmorality was kept within certain bounds, and
circumscribed by a force which, now, is no restraint.
Printing was in its infancy. Written books were few, and
very costly. In Milan, a city of two hundred thousand
inhabitants, there were only fifty copyists. Not till 1465,
in the reign of the Lord Paul P.P. II, was there a printing-
press in Italy, at Subjaco in the Sabine Hills ; while
Florence had no press till 147 1. And, at first, printed
books were regarded with disfavour by reason of their
cheapness. One rich man said that he would be ashamed
to have them in his library, as now a rich man would be
ashamed to have Brummagem electro instead of hall-marked
silver. Yet, by means of ambulant printers, who printed
only one page at a time on a hand-press in a mule-cart
(and who were the pioneers of that curse to real civilization,
the printed book), before 1500 no fewer than 4987 works
had been printed in Italy alone. Here again the fifteenth-
century passion for perfect workmanship came into play.
Look at an Aldine Classic, and mark its exquisite form.
Messer Aldo Manuzio of Venice set a great artist,
Messer Francesco Raibolini (detto II Francia), who painted

The Kindling of the Fire

the dulcet Pietd in the National Gallery, to cut a fount ot
type after the lovely handwriting of the poet Petrarch.
That is the Aldine, or original Italic type ; the script of a
fourteenth-century singer. Can the twentieth century, with
its manifold appliances, its labour-saving machinery, better
that handiwork, or approach that design ; or would a Royal
Academician condescend to cut types for a printer ! Look
at the portrait-medals and pictures of the day to see of what
fashion were these elaborately simple men of the fifteenth
century: — The English type, sturdy, recondite, and simple ;
the French type, simple and light and vain ; the Italian, subtle
and simple and strong — an English Hospitaller, a French
cardinal, an Italian scholar called, The Phoenix of Genius ;
John Kendal, Grand Prior of the Knights of St. John of
Jerusalem in England ; Cardinal- Archbishop Georges
d'Amboise,; and Messer Giovanni Pico della Mirandola ;
on their medals in the British, and Victoria and Albert,
Museums. The painters of this era, after Giotto, had emanci-
pated themselves from the domination of the Church. They
refused any longer to be bound by that decree of the Council
of Nicaea (a.d. 787), which calmly, inexorably, and altogether
justifiably ordained : — It is not the invention of the painter
which creates the picture ; but an inviolable law, a tradition
of the Church. It is not the painter, but the holy fathers,
who have to invent and dictate. To them, manifestly, belongs
the composition; to the painter, only the execution. The
fifteenth century was the century of broken bonds — bonds
of discipline, bonds of morality. Men tasted liberty, had
discovered Man ; and, like schoolboys breaking bounds,
playing truant, dazed in some rich orchard, they revelled
and rollicked among fruits hitherto forbidden, potentialities
long-dormant now alive. Unaccustomed sight had yet
but imperfect impressions. Men saw " men as trees
walking " ; but as far as they went the impressions were
vivid, life-like, true. Study the mercilessly precise drawings
of Cavaliere Andrea Mantegna, the Lombard, pupil of
Squarcione, who painted for the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII
that chapel on the Belvedere which was destroyed by the
Lord Pius P.P. VI, and who won his knighthood by
painting for the Marquess Don Francesco de Gonzaga of

chronicles of the House of Borgia

Mantua. Study the works of Messer Luca Signorelli,
"the first and last painter except Michelangelo to use the
body without sentiment, without voluptuousness, without
any secondary intention whatsoever, as the supreme decora-
tive principle " {Sy7no7ids Renascence) ; who, having had
killed at Cortona his young and splendid son, stripped the
body naked, and, with iron nerve, painted from it during a
day and a night, " that he might be able, through the work
of his own hand, to contemplate that which nature had given
him, but which an adverse fortune had taken away."
i^Vasari.) Above all, study Messer Alessandro Filipepi
(detto Botticelli), who, having finished the chapel of the
Lord Xystus P.P. IV, was back again in Florence, painting
for Lorenzo de' Medici. How many of the Medici he put into
his pictures we never shall know ; but if ever a painter painted
from the life Alessandro Filipepi was that painter ; and, with a
little sympathetic ingenuity, one can trace at least a single
precious portrait through his pictures, and into the pictures
of another and more conventional painter ; and, in this way,
learn what like was one very prominent personality of the

Borgian Era, as Tra/^, iitipavnov, a-idtvprig, e(p7jftoQ, av^pog. Study

the angel-boys and San Giambattista in the round Madonna
of the National Gallery and the round Coronation of
Madonna at the Uffizi. Study the Hermes Ptenopedilos
in the Primavera that Botticelli painted on the verses of
Lucretius Carus (737-740) as a setting for a portrait of
an unknown lady of the House of Medici. And study the
limber San Sebastiano at Berlin. Then study murdered
Giuliano's bastard, the Lord Giulio de' Medici, Archbishop
of Florence, Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, and Cardinal-
Deacon of Santa Maria in Dommca, in the portrait of the
myopic Lord Leo P.P. X by Messer Rafaele Sanzio da
Urbino. So shall a lean, muscular, vivid, thoughtful, pious,
unmoral, voluptuous yet hardy, typical, young Italian of the
Borgian Era be clearly, intimately, seen and known. And
the medals : — Note how that the medallists have not learned
to flatter or idealise ; that, what they saw in their model,
that they chiselled in perennial bronze. Note the character,
the distinguished individuality, here preserved ; the Sforza
medals, for example, with their clean, compelling, vigorous,

The Kindling of the Fire

venomous, Greek profiles, which that illustrious House got
(and preserves to this day in Prince Guido Sforza and his
sister Princess Carolina Corsini) from Countess Polissena
Russaof Montalto, who married Duke Francesco. Observe,
from their manner of clothing" him, how these people
worshipped Man. Not for them was the concealment of
his grace in dented fractured cylinders. Every natural line
must be preserved, every contour displayed, in that age of
unconventional realism. The frescoes of Messer Bernardo
Betti (detto Pinturicchio), in the cathedral library of Siena,
are said to be the fashion-plates of the day and month
(1503- 1 507), done by an eminent artist. And the fabrics of
which they made their clothes were fine and simple ; for the
uses of shoddy were not known. Sumptuous brocades,
fairest linen of flax, furs from the East, and delicate enduring
leather, adorned those men and women who had not learned
to change their garments as often as they changed their
minds ; and who went to bed at night simply as nature
made them. That they were meticulously clean, is witnessed
by the embossed basins and ewers for frequent washings,
the hanging lavabo on the wall of every room (when
washing was a ceremonial habit), the elaborate supplies of
water, the baths of macerated sweet herbs, glasswort, white
lily, marsh-mallow, and lupin-meal, alkaline, mucilaginous,
emollient, demulcent, which were the substitute for soap.
Care for the personal appearance was extreme. Little signs
show this. For example, the twentieth-century man, con-
fection of his hosier and his tailor, plays with watch-chain,
stick, or card-case ; the writer, hesitating over the turning
of a phrase or waiting for the just word, rolls a cigarette ;
the painter, considering an effect, dabbles in a tobacco-jar
and lights a pipe. Man has a natural craving to employ his
hands. In similar situations, Messer Lionardo da Vinci's
model and studio-boy, the curly-headed Salaino, would bring
rosewater and towel to refresh his master's fingers ; Canon
Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano) would take out an ivory
comb and comb his long straight hair ; and a dandy
anxiously would study his image in polished metal mirrors
set like bosses on his dagger sheath, or chew comfits of
coriander-seeds, steeped in marjoram vinegar and crusted

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

with sugar, to bring a special commodity to the memory.
In an age when personal and private functions were pur-
sued after the methods of cats or dogs according to the
temperament of the pursuer, when that which is now called
sanitation was unknown, great and incessant efforts in the
way of cleanliness were imperative ; and he who insistently
displayed, who publicly exhibited, his cleanly habits, natu-
rally enjoyed the consideration and approval of his equally
modish contemporaries. And they were practically pious
too, these hardy ardent exquisites, who shed an enemy's
blood as remorselessly as though murder were a natural
function. They would weep real tears of devotion over the
drama of the Passion of our Divine Redeemer enacted in
the ruined Colosseo of Rome ; and, afterwards, zealously
adjourn with knives to the houses of known Jews, or per-
fervidly hunt the dark lanes of the city for any of the
accursed race who was so misguided as to show his yellow-
patched jerkin on the street. The Venetians had a penchant
for holy relics, and deemed no sacrifice too great for
increasing their collection. In 1455, the republic made a
bid of ten thousand ducats for the Seamless Coat, now at
Treves, and ordained days of humiliation when the offer
was refused. The Doge of Venice was obliged officially to
assist at twelve public processions in each year. To please
the piety and vanity of Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici person-
ally applied to the city of Spoleto for the corpse of the
painter Fra Lippo Lippi ; but Spoleto answered that it had
none too many ornaments as a city, especially in the shape
of the cadavers of distinguished people, and begged to be
excused. " The men of the Renascence were so constituted
that, to turn, from vice and cruelty and crime, from the
deliberate corruption and enslavement of a people by
licentious pleasures, from the persecution of an enemy in
secret, with a fervid and impassioned movement of the soul
to God, was nowise impossible. Their temper admitted of
this anomaly, as we may plainly see from Cellini's auto-
biography." {Symonds Renascence.)

# # j^

The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII made no impression on
His age ; as a despot. He was an accented failure. "The

The Kindling of the Fire

Patrimony of St. Peter would be the most delightful country
in the world if it were not for Colonna and Orsini," said the
Sieur Philippe de Comines, Orator of the Christian King
Louis XI of France. The States of the Church became a
seething cauldron of lawlessness and licence. Rome herself,
" where everything that is shameful or horrible collects and
is practised " ( Tacitus), swarmed with assassins, professional
and amateur. Every man who valued his personal safety
put on a mail-shirt when he left his naked bed, and set no
foot in the streets till he had buckled a sword, or at least a
dagger, by his side. The very perfection of these fifteenth-
century mail-shirts, which could be hidden in two hands,
and yet were proof against a thrust or cut at closest quarters,
tells its own tale. The trade of an armourer became an
honourable art and mystery, when men staked their lives
at every turn, as men callously stake money now on their
convictions or opinions. A whole embassage from Maxi-
milian, King of the Romans, as the heir of Caesar Friedrich
IV was styled, was assailed by brigands and stripped to the
shirts in sight of Rome.

In July 1492 the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII showed signs
of decay, the feebleness of age increased, and He was only
kept alive by women's milk. Modern chroniclers of His last
hours have fallen into serious error, in relating that the
operation for transfusion of blood was performed by a
Hebrew chirurgeon upon the Holiness of the Pope without
accomplishing its end. The error arises from forgetfulness
of the facts : (a) that the idea of the operation for transfusion
could not occur to any one to whom the circulation of the
blood was unknown ; (/3) that the phenomenon of the circula-
tion of the blood was not discovered by Harvey until the
seventeenth century. Before the circulation of the blood
was known, the visible veins were taken for sinews. Ver-
rochio thought them to be sinews when he carved them
on the lean young arms of his alert David. The
blood was conceived of as stagnant in the flesh ; the heart-
beats as a pulsing of the bowels. If the idea of trans-
ferring blood from a healthy to a feeble body had occurred
to any one of them, the ordinary fifteenth-century
chirurgeons would not have been contented with a single

chronicles of the House of Borgia

incision, but would have filled up the weak body through
numerous apertures, to be closed with the red hot cautery
as usual ; and the patient most certainly would have died
under the operation, of syncope, caused, not by loss, but
by acquisition of blood. Modern historians have misunder-
stood the words with which Infessura and Raynaldus
describe the death of this Pope : and their misunderstanding
further is caused by a casual and superficial knowledge of
the pharmacy of the fifteenth century. Infessura and
Raynaldus say that a certain Jewish physician promised
to the Pope's Holiness the restoration of His health ; that
he took three boys of the age of ten years, giving to them
a ducat a-piece, saying that he wished to restore the Pope's
health, and that he required for that purpose a certain
quantity of human blood, which must be young ; that he drew
all the blood out of those three boys ; that the said boys
incontinently died ; that, when the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII
knew, He execrated the crime of the Jew and gave order
for his arrest ; that the Jew had taken himself by flight out
of the reach of the torturers ; and that the Pope received no
cure. This, Dr. Mandell Creighton and Mr. John Adding-
ton Symonds call transfusion of blood. They appear to be
unaware of the fifteenth-century passion for sublimation and
distillation : and they appear to have missed this sentence of
Raynaldus, ut ex eo (the young blood) pharmacum stilli-
cidiiwt chimica arte paratum propinaiiduvi Pontifici con-
ficeret ; which plainly shows that it was a draught, a drink, ^
the quintessence of the boys' blood, prepared by his
alchymical art, with which the Hebrew physician was going
to fail to save the life of the Pope.

•¥• -^ ^f-

w -vr "TV*

These were the times, and the men, which the Vice-
chancellor-Cardinal Rodrigo de Lan9ol y Borja had to deal.

* * *

^ The saving virtue of a drink of human blood was no new idea. Compare
TertuUian Apol. IX. '■'■Item illi qui munere in arena noxiorum iugulatorum
sanguinem recentem (de iugulo decurrentem exceptum) avida siti comitiali morbch
medentes hauserunt, ubi sunt? "

The Roaring Blaze

" A five that is kindled begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays
'^ hold upon the faggots ; bursts into a roaring blaze with raging
" tongues of flame, devouring all in reach ;

The subject of this book has furnished occasion for liars
of all ages — reckless liars, venal liars, raving liars, careless
liars, clever liars, and futile liars, to perform their functions.

The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII died on the twenty-fifth
of July 1492. The Lord Rafaele Galeotti Sansoni-Riarjo,
Cardinal- Deacon of San Giorgfio in Velum Aureum^
Cardinal-Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, sent
guards to seize and hold the gates of Rome. Caporioni,
priors of the fourteen Regions, patrolled the city to deal
with seditions and disorders. Patarina, the great bell on
Capitol, that only tolls when the Pope is dead, knelled
unceasingly.

At this time the Sacred Colleg-e consisted of seven and
twenty cardinals. Four of these were absent in distant
sees, and were unable to reach the Eternal City in the
nine days at their disposal. They were : —

(a) The Lord Luis Juan de Mila y Borja, Cardinal-
Prior- Presbyter of the Title of Santi Quattro
Coronati ;

(/3) The Lord Pedro Gonsalvo de Mendoza, Cardinal-
Presbyter of the Title of Santa Croce in Geru-
saleinme ;

(7) The Lord Andre Spinay, Cardinal- Presbyter of the
Title of San Martino in Monte t.t. Equitii ;
81 F

chronicles of the House of Borgia

(S) Frere Pierre d'Aubusson, Grand Master of the
Kniorhts of Rhodes, Cardinal- Deacon of Sant'
Adriano.

Twenty-one cardinals entered the Conclave. They

were

(a) The Lord Rodrigo de Lan^ol y Borja, Cardinal-
Bishop of Porto and Santa Rufina, Dean of the
Sacred College, Vicechancellor of the Holy Roman.
Church, etc. ;

(j3) The Lord Giovanni Michele, Cardinal- Bishop of
Praeneste, Bishop of Verona ;

(7) The Lord Oliviero Carafa, Cardinal- Bishop of
Sabina, Archbishop of Naples ;

(g) The Lord Giorgio Costa, Cardinal- Bishop of Albano.

{e) The Lord Antoniotto Pallavicini, Cardinal- Presbyter
of the Title of Sant' Anastasia ;

(^)The Lord Girolamo Basso della Rovere, Cardinal-
Presbyter of the Title of San Crisogono, Bishop of
Recanata ;

(tj) The Lord Domenico della Rovere, Cardinal- Pres-
byter of the Title of San Clemente, Archbishop of
Taranto ;

(B) The Lord Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal- Presbyter
of the Title of San Pietro ad Vincula ;

(t) The Lord Paolo Fregosio, Cardinal- Presbyter of the
Title of San Sisto, Archbishop of Genoa ;

(k) The Lord Giovanni de' Conti, Cardinal- Presbyter
of the Title of San Vitale, Archbishop of Consano ;

(X) The Lord Giangiacomo Sclafenati, Cardinal- Pres-
byter of the Title of San Stefano in Monte Celio,
Bishop of Parma ;

(^) The Lord Ardicino della Porta, Cardinal- Presbyter
of the Title of San Giovanni e San Paolo, Bishop
of Alba ;

(v) The Lord Lorenzo Cibo, Cardinal- Presbyter of the
Title of Santa Cecilia, Archbishop of Benevento ;

(^) The Lord Francesco de' Piccolhuomini, Cardinal-
Archdeacon of Sant' Eustachio, Archbishop of

Siena ;

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(o) The Lord Rafaele Galeotti Sansoni-Riarjo, Cardinal-
Deacon of San Giorgio in Velum Aureum,
Cardinal-Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church;

(tt) The Lord Giovanni Colonna, Cardinal- Deacon of
Santa Maria in Aquiro ;

(p) The Lord Giambattista Orsini, Cardinal- Deacon of
Santa Maria Nuova ;

(o-) The Lord Giovanni de' Medici, Cardinal-Deacon of
Santa Maria in Doinnica ;

(t) The Lord Giovanni Savelli, Cardinal- Deacon of
San Niccolo iii Car cere Tulliano ;

(y) The Lord Giambattista Zeno, Cardinal- Deacon of
Santa Maria in Portico ;

{(j)) The Lord Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, Cardinal-
Deacon of San Vito e San Modesto in Macello,
Martiri.

At the last moment, before the Conclave finally was
immured, there came : —

(x) Fra Mafeo Gheraldo, Cardinal- Presbyter of the
Title of San Nereo e Sant' Achilleo, Patriarch of
Venice ;

(^) The Lord Friderico Sanseverini, Cardinal- Deacon
of San Teodoro.

On the sixth of August 1492, this Conclave of twenty-
three cardinals listened to the preliminary exhortations of
Fra Bernardino Lopez de Caravajal, and the business of
election was beorun.

Man mercifully has been left unable to foresee the effect
which his actions will have upon the future. Many of these
cardinals had assisted before at the election of a Pope ; it
was a routine with which they were acquainted. But by
no means could they know what a mark upon the world's
history they would make with this election. Subsequent
events, however, have shewn that the seed of tremendous
issues here was sown, issues as great as the consolidation of
a European kingdom under a sovereign dynasty that
endured until 1870. As such, the Conclave of 1492 must

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

be regarded as one of the most pregnant that ever have
occurred ; and its details, as worthy of intent consideration.

There was a faction and a shadow of a faction among
the cardinals. The candidate of the first was the Dean and
Vicechancellor-Cardinal Rodrigo de Lan^ol y Borja, nephew
of the Lord Calixtus P.P. III. He actively was supported
by the very influential cardinals Sforza-Visconti, Colonna,
and Riarjo, whose friendship he is said to have cultivated
during the reign of the late Pope, by promises of prefer-
ment and by gifts. He also is said to have won the alliance
of fourteen other cardinals by similar inducements, and so
to have placed himself at the head of a faction of eighteen.
His supporters were led to believe that his Spanish nation-
ality would make him neutral to the political parties of
Italy ; and much stress was laid upon the fact that Spain
was now the rising power in Europe, with whom the
Church would do well to be allied. The standard of morality
of the day prevented objections to the character of Cardinal
Rodrigo ; and it was made clear to all that he was by far the
richest cardinal, holding all the most lucrative appointments,
which last would have to be vacated, and would be his to
give away, in the event of his election.

The candidate of the second faction was Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere, a nephew of the Lord Xystus P.P.
IV. He was the life-long disappointed rival, in more senses
than one, of Cardinal Rodrigo. His candidature was an
attempt on the part of the Christian King Charles VIII of
France to set up a Pontiff devoted to French, and not to
Spanish, interests ; to which end the King's Majesty deposited
two hundred thousand ducats with a Roman bank for the
purchase of cardinalitial votes.

There was an independent candidate, Cardinal Lorenzo
Cibo, a nephew of the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, to whom
Cardinal Pallavicini was bound by ties of gratitude : but he
had no other supporter, and became submerged in the
majority.

Of the two contestants, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere
had the poorer chance. His own cousins. Cardinals Giro-
lamo and Domenico della Rovere, would not support him.
His personality was universally antipathetic ; his opponent's

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was universally sympathetic. The French money which he
had taken, was but as a drop in the ocean compared with
the enormous wealth and desperate determination of the
Spaniard. Also, there were no votes for sale. Four car-
dinals— the Lords Oliviero Carafa, Giorgio Costa, Francesco
de' Piccolhuomini, and Giambattista Zeno — ^announced that
they would vote independently and under no influence ;
while the remnant of the Sacred College, consisting of
seventeen cardinals, having been fiercely canvassed by Car-
dinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, representative of the
reigning House of Milan and hereditary foe of France, were
already in the pocket of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal-
Dean.

The third night of the Conclave concluded the pre-
liminary discussions ; and at dawn, on the eleventh of August
1492, Cardinal Rodrigo was elected Pope, by the large
majority of twenty-two out of twenty-three, consisting of his
own vote with those of the Cardinal- Bishops Giovanni
Michele, Oliviero Carafa, Giorgio Costa, the Cardinal-
Presbyters Antoniotto Pallavicini, Lorenzo Cibo, Mafeo
Gheraldo, Girolamo Basso della Rovere, Domenico della
Rovere, Paolo Fregosio, Giovanni de' Conti, Giangiacomo
Sclafenati, Ardicino della Porta, the Cardinal-Archdeacon
Francesco de' Piccolhuomini, the Cardinal- Deacons Rafaele
Galeotti Sansoni-Riarjo, Giovanni Colonna, Giambattista
Orsini, Giovanni de' Medici, Giovanni Savelli, Friderico
Sanseverini, Giambattista Zeno, and Ascanio Maria Sforza-
Visconti.

Rome was exciting herself about this election. Four
mule loads of silver had been taken from the palace of
Cardinal Rodrigo to the house of Cardinal Sforza-Visconti
before the immuring of the Conclave, most conceivably to
be guarded there more safely. Rome guessed that the
Spaniard was so certain of his own election as to be
preparing for the pleasant custom, which the citizens used,
of pillaging the palace of the cardinal who was elected
Pope. Some of the silver perhaps may have passed into
Sforza's possession ; but there is no direct evidence to prove
the absurd statement of Monsi"fnor Burchard that it was
the price of his vote. In the first instance, the security of

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

tlie silver, was most probably the motive for its transference.
After the election the Pope would naturally wish to reward
his most useful supporter ; and no doubt left the silver^
with Cardinal Sforza-Visconti while bestowing on him
other and more proportionate acknowledgments.

In the Conclave, if one can believe reports, there was
no less excitement. All the sombre dignity of Spain left
Cardinal Rodrigo at the supreme moment of his life. He
showed himself as just a human man, successful in the
most daring, most immense, of all ambitions, when his
quondam colleagues lowered their green or purple canopies
to his, as he joyfully cried: "We are Pope and Vicar of
Christ ! "

The cardinals knelt at His feet, and Cardinal Sforza-
Visconti said that undoubtedly the election was the work of
God. Then the new Pope recovered at least decorum of
speech, replying that He was conscious of His Own weakness,
and relied entirely upon Divine Guidance ; but His order to
Monsignor Burchard, the Caerimonarius, to write His name
on little slips of paper, and fling them from a window for
the satisfaction of the citizens who swarmed impatiently
outside the Vatican ; and His haste to retire behind the
altar for the purpose of changing His cardinalitial scarlet for
the papal habit of white taffetas with cincture, rochet of fair
linen, embroidered crimson stola, house-cap, almuce, and
shoes of ermine and crimson velvet (of which vestments
three sizes are prepared, to suit the stature of any Pope) ;
this order and this haste shew that the Pope's Holiness was
most deeply moved, as any human being well might be.

Outside, Rome rejoiced. Inside, the cardinals asked
what name the Pope would choose, suggesting Calixtus as a
compliment to His dead Uncle andCreator, Whohad brought

1 Only one piece of antique silver, a salt-cellar, was possessed by the
House of Sforza in the latter years of the last century. All the rest was not
recovered from that Don Marino Torlonia, who usurped the Sforza- Cesarini
titles and estates from 1832 to 1836, when he was deprived of them by the
Ruota, the Supreme Tribunal of the Holy See, in favour of Don Lorenzo
Sforza-Cesarini, grandfather of the present duke. The line of the great
Francesco Sforza-Visconti, Duke of Milan, to which Cardinal Ascanio Maria
belonged, is now extinct. The present House of Sforza-Cesarini descends
from Don Bosio Sforza, Count of Santafiora, 1441-1476, brother of the great
Francesco, and second son of Don Giovanni Muzio Attendolo, detto Sforza.

The Roaring Blaze

Him first to Rome. But, now, the Pontiff had regained His
magnificent composure, and He answered mightily : " We
desire the name of the Invincible Alexander." Cardinal
Giovanni de' Medici, a clever, serious boy of the age of
seventeen years, whispered to Cardinal Cibo : " Now we
are in the jaws of a ravening wolf, and if we do not flee he
will devour us." But the gigantic Cardinal Sanseverini
lifted the Lord Alexander P.P. VI in his strong arms and
throned Him on the altar ; and the Sacred College paid Him
the first adoration, kissing the cross embroidered on His
shoe and on the ends of the stola at His knee, and the Ring
of the Fisherman on His right forefinger, while Cardinal-
Archdeacon Franceso de' Piccolhuomini and the second
Cardinal- Deacon made proclamation to the crowd at the
re-opened door of the Conclave :

" I announce to you great joy. We have for a Pope
the Vicechancellor-Cardinal-Dean Rodrigo de Lan9ol y
Borja, Who wills to be called Alexander the Sixth."

^ And, incontinent, says Monsignor Hans Burchard
the vulgar tittle-tattling Caerimonarius, (wilfully misquoting
the Vulgate Psalm cxi. 9,) having assumed the papal power,
dispersit et dedit pa^iperibus bona sua, He hath dispersed. He
hath given to the poor, his goods. {Authorised Version,
Psalm cxii. 9.) To Cardinal Orsini He gave the Vice-
chancellor's palace of San Lorenzo in Damaso, the fortalices
of Soria and Monticelli, the revenues of the cathedral of
Cartagena in Spain, worth five thousand ducats (which He
had been administering for Don Cesare (detto Borgia) in
accordance with the Breves of the Lords Xystus P.P. IV
and Innocent P.P. VIII), and the legation of the Mark of
Ancona. To Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti He
gave His new palace on Banchi Vecchi {v. p. 6y), the town
of Nepi, the revenues of the cathedral of Agria in Hungary,
worth ten thousand ducats, and named him, at the age of
thirty-seven years, Vicechancellor of the Holy Roman
Church. To Cardinal Colonna He gave the Abbacy of
Subjaco with all its fortresses and rights of patronage,

' This paragraph rests entirely upon the gossip and conjectures of
Manfredi, Orator of Ferrara at Florence ; Stefano Infessura (Ed. Tonnnasini)
Hans Burchard (Ed Thuasne) ; Bernardino Corio (Storia di Milano).

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

confirmino- the same to his house for ever. To Cardinal
Riarjo He gave the huge palace in Trastevere (now Corsini)
vacated by Cardinal Sforza-Visconti, benefices in Spain
producing four thousand ducats yearly revenue, and con-
firmed him in his office of Cardinal-Chamberlain. To
Cardinal Savelli He gave the legations of Perugia and Civita
Castellana, including twenty towns and a revenue of three
thousand ducats ; and to other cardinals the remainder of
the preferments which He now vacated.

If these gifts were given and taken as the price of votes,
then an enormous act of Simony technically was committed,
the buying and selling of ecclesiastical power. Afterwards,
His enemies continually were charging Him with Simony;
but, at the time, no serious accusation was made. Even
the four cardinals, who had announced that they did not
intend to be bribed, voted for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.
And here it may be noticed, that though Simony, by the
Bull of the Lord Julius P.P. II De Simoniaca Electione, is
held to invalidate an ecclesiastical election ; yet the said
Bull was not issued until after the death of the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI, and was not retrospective in effect,
although the vehement personal hatred of Julius for Alex-
ander, hatred worthy rather of Carthaginian Hannibal than
of the Vicar of the Prince of Peace, leaves no doubt what-
ever of the intention to defile the memory of the preceding
Pontiff with an insinuation which never has been made
valid. Under these circumstances, it perhaps may be
permitted to those irrational persons who habitually usurp
the functions of the Eternal Judge, and who already have
condemned the Borgia Pontiff, to remember that, if this
election was invalidated and annulled by Simony, He never
was a Pope at all, and therefore cannot be blamed, attacked,
condemned, in a papal capacity. Much satisfaction of a
kind may be derived from that reflection. At the same
time, though the theory might be allowed for private con-
sumption, as a "pious opinion" distinguished from a
"dogma," it would be highly injudicious to court collision
with another Bull — the Bull Exen^-abilis of the Lord
Pius P.P. II — which provides all proclaimed aspersions of
the Popes with pains and penalties. But when all has been

The Roaring Blaze

considered, no evidence is forthcoming to prove that a single
cardinal sold — sold — his vote to Cardinal Rodrigo buying.
None but a purchased or unpurchased cardinal can testify
that he sold, or did not sell ; and none of these have testi-
fied. That the new Pope gave great gifts is not denied.
Popes always do. They cannot help Themselves. The
Lord Alexander P.P. VI vacated so much preferment, that
He had much to give. To give that preferment was one of
the duties of His office ; and, naturally. He gave it to His
friends, and not to His single enemy and envious rival.
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who, in revenge, alleged
Simony.

•^ •V- .u>

"TV* -rr T^

The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII died on the twenty-fifth of
July 1492. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI began to reign
on the eleventh of August. Durmg the seventeen days that
intervened, while the city was under the rigid rule of the
white-faced Cardinal-Chamberlain Riarjo, a matter of some
two hundred and twenty assassinations took place : in such
order had the deceased Pope left His capital that more
than nine murders were committed every day among a
population of a mere five and eighty thousand. The Lord
Alexander P.P. VI acted with decision to end this abomin-
able state of lawlessness. An assassin was caught red-
handed — there was no difficulty about that — he and his
brother were forced to look on while their house was rased
to the ground (the worst disgrace possible to a Roman) ; and
then they were ceremoniously hanged among the ruins. A
commission was established to decide all quarrels, which,
formerly, had been settled by cold steel. Official inspectors
of prisons were appointed ; arrears of official salaries paid
up to date ; and a bench of four judges established for
dealing with capital crimes. So the first act of this pontifi-
cate was the restoration, at least provisionally, of public
order. The admiring Romans said that this vigorous
administration of justice was due to the direct disposing of
the Almighty.

The coronation, on the steps before the Basilica of
St. Peter in the Vatican, of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI by
the Cardinal- Archdeacon on the twenty-sixth of August was

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

a scene of unlimited magnificence, attended by the Orators of
the Powers who hailed the Pope with the most laudatory-
congratulations. Canon Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano),
who spoke for Siena, said : —

"Praestans animi magnitude quae mortales crederes omnes antecellere —
" Magna quaedam de te, rara, ardua, singularia, incredibilia, inaudita,
" pollicentur.i

The Orator of Lucca said : —

" Quid iste tuus divinus, et maiestate plenus, aspectus ?

The Orator of Genoa said : —

" Adeo virtutum gloria et disciplinarum laude, et vitae sanctimonia
" decoraris, et adeo singularum ac omnium rerum ornamento dotaris, quae
" talem summam ac venerandam dignitatem praebeant ut valde ab omnibus
" ambigendum sit, tu ne magis pontificatui, an ilia tibi sacratissima et
" gloriosissima Papatus dignitas offerenda fuerit.

The Venetian Senate rejoiced : —

" propter divinas virtutes ac dotes quibus Ipsum insignitum et ornatum
" conspiciebamus, videbatur a Divina Providentia talem Pastorem gregi,
" dominio et sacrosancto Romanae Ecclesiae Vicarium Suum fuisse delec-
" turn et praeordinatum.

Manfredi, the Ferrarese Orator at Florence, wrote to his
Duchess : —

" Dicesi che sara glorioso pontifice !

Those words were re-echoed from Milan, from Naples,
even from far Germany, "They say that this will be a glorious
Pontiff! " All who were permitted to approach Him were en-
chanted by His magnificent presence and His honeyed tongue ;
every one praised His talents, His notable mastery of affairs,
His active benevolence and beneficence. He was admired
because His habits were of the simplest kind, and His magni-
ficence free from prodigal ostentation : though it must be
added that the Ferrarese Orator said that people disliked

' For an English parallel of riotous superlatives, compare the inscription
on a picture of Elizabeth in the Hall of the Post- Reformation Jesus College,
Oxford.

" Diva Elizabetha Virgo Invictissima Semper Augusta Plus Quam
Caesarea Angliae Franciae et Hiberniae Potentissima Imperatrix Fidei Chris-
tianae Fortissima Propugnatrix Literarum Omnium Scientissima Fautrix Im-
menso Oceani Felicissima Triumphatrix CoUegii Jesu Oxon Fundatrix."

■S^ie>XX€'?t€l^'l t-X c-/ FT.

The Roaring Blaze

dining with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI because His meals
consisted of a single dish. But Rome and Italy generally
were very proud of Him, because, at sixty-one years of age,
He combined the vigour of manhood's prime with the wisdom
of experience of life. If peace could be maintained, while
a strong hand guided politics, the auspices were all
propitious.

On the thirty-first of August, at the First Consistory, the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI named his nephew, Don Juan de
Borja y Lan^ol (Giovanni Borgia, detto Seniore) Cardinal-
Presbyter of the Title of Santa Susanna. This Most Worship-
ful Purpled One was the son of the Pope's sister, Dofia Juana.
He had been Apostolic Prothonotary, Corrector of Pontifical
Breves, and Archbishop of Monreale, under the Lord Xystus
P.P. IV; and powerless Governor of Rome under the Lord
Innocent P.P. VIII. He was a great man of business,
dexterous and capable with plenary powers, and competent
to deal with grave matters. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
like His Aug^ust Uncle, lost no time in securing" the services of
blood relation near to His Own person.

The chorus of flattery was not altogether free from dis-
cords. The sinister Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, every
day becoming more and more aggrieved by the success of
his abhorred rival, called for a General Council (according
to the ridiculous custom of his age) to adjudge the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI guilty of Simony. In Florence the
eccentric Fra Girolamo Savonarola, a friar of the Religion
of St. Dominic, was prophesying evil days. Lorenzo de'
Medici, " that monster of genius," was dead ; and he, literally,
had been the Keeper of the Peace. His sons, Don Piero
and Don Lorenzo Secondo, brothers to Cardinal Giovanni,
were no fit successors to their renowned father. Fra Giro-
lamo really ruled in Florence ; and his rule was baneful,
because he let his personality over-ride his principles.
Starting, a few years before, to convert the sinners of
Florence, he had preached naked Christianity. When he
had smitten many souls to penitence, his converts (in the
manner of converts) leaned upon him. He allowed himself
to become a director. From director it naturally was but
a step to dictator : and there is the human error of F" ra

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Girolamo Savonarola. That is the point from which he
went astray. As dictator, he brought not peace but a
sword — privilege of not a human man. He ordained what
the world calls eccentricities ; he became impatient of
opinion, of resistance, of control ; his penitents were the
Salvation Army of the fifteenth century, making singular
exhibitions of frenetic benevolence. He had made himself,
by perfectly legal means, independent of his local Dominican
superiors ; the Archbishop of the province had no jurisdic-
tion over him ; he was subject only to the General of
Dominicans and to the Pope in Rome. He was absolutely
sincere ; he was a fervent Catholic ; of his bonafides there
can be no doubt whatever. He had no attraction of
manner ; his personal aspect was vulgar, terrible, appalling.
Yet there must have been some charm in his teaching, for
great and holy men left all to follow him ; Messer Alessandro
Filipepi (detto Botticelli) joined him. And now he claimed
to be the prophet of the Most High, prophesying of evils at
the door.

■^ ^ ^

•TV- TV' "TV-

Milan menaced the peace of Italy. By the assassination
of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza-Visconti in 1476, the duchy
passed to his infant son Duke Giangaleazzo ; whose widowed
mother, the Duchess Bona of Savoja, ruled as Regent.
Four brothers of her dead husband conspired against her;
and in 1479, the eldest, Don Ludovico Maria Sforza Vis-
conti (detto II Moro), took possession of her child and
deprived her of the regency. Cardinal Ascanio Maria,
brother of II Moro, exerted himself in Rome to obtain con-
firmation of this heartless deed. Duchess Bona, distracted
when she found her young son torn from her arms, knowing
his infant life to be the only bar between his uncle Don
Ludovico Maria and the throne of Milan, made frantic
appeals for the intervention of France. But the Christian
King Louis XI died before he could reply to that poor
mother : and Don Ludovico Maria, as Regent, thrived,
keeping the boy-duke at Pavia in a palace that was, in fact,
a prison, in conditions not cruel nor fatal but assuredly not
ducal, nor suited to the enjoyment and maintenance of life.
In 1489 Duke Giangaleazzo reached the age of twenty

The Roaring Blaze

years ; and then it was remembered that his mother ; the
Duchess Bona, had affianced him in his infancy to Madonna
Isabella, daughter of the heir of Naples, Duke Don Alonso
de Aragona of Calabria. There appeared to be no reason
why Don Ludovico Maria should exacerbate the royal
House of Naples by interference with the keeping of this
contract ; the boy was eager, the girl was marriageable ; and
the wedding was celebrated with appropriate pomp. The
usurping Regent insisted, however, that, as the young Duke
was a minor, he should still remain in the condition of a
ward ; and the newly- wedded children retired to try conjugal
life at Pavia. A year later, 1492, a son was born ; and
then Duke Giangaleazzo, by paternity emboldened into
manlihood, became restive against his uncle's yoke, pro-
testing that he no longer would submit to the treatment of
a boy. But Don Ludovico was well aware that long con-
finement shortens life ; and he had kept his nephew a prisoner
for ten years. He was not precisely of the stuff of which
murderers are made ; or a knife-blade delicately pushed
between the youngster's neck and spine long ago would have
made the sceptre of Milan his. As Regent he had absolute
power ; and he was well content to wait. So he took no notice
of Duke Giangaleazzo's remonstrances ; and, to pass the
time, he practised marriage in his proper person, wedding
the lovely Madonna Beatrice d'Este of Ferrara in 1491.
(Don Francesco Sforza, son of Don Bosio Sforza and
Madonna Cecilia Aldobrandeschi, heiress of Santafiora, the
kinsman of Don Ludovico Maria, who arranged this marriage,
was the Orator of Milan at the coronation of the Lord Alex-
ander P.P. VI in 1492.) After the nuptials of the usurping
Regent, the young Duke Giangaleazzo resigned himself to
bear his lot. But his wife was furious, and thought of the
interests of her baby son. " In real truth," cried Madonna
Isabella to her feeble spouse, " thou art Duke of Milan, and
I thy Duchess. But thou art content to abide in Pavia
while that Black, Don Ludovico, ruleth in thy duchy, and
seateth Madonna Beatrice near him in my place on thy
throne. I will have that girl to know that she is no duchess,
and that I, I Isabella, am Duchess of Milan." And the
lady wrote to her father, Don Alonso de Aragona Duke of

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Calabria, who was heir to the crown of the Regno, inciting
him to resent the insult put upon her, his daughter, to end
the usurpation of Don Ludovico Maria, and to restore Duke
Giangaleazzo to his duchy.

Duke Don Alonso was not unwilling. War was
imminent between Naples and Milan. Then the Pope
died ; the Lord Alexander P.P. VI succeeded Him ; and,
it being an age when the Pope frankly was admitted to be
Ruler of the World, Father of princes and of kings, etc., all
Italy and Christendom waited to know the new Pope's
pleasure.

This was the first of a series of extremely delicate
positions in which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI found
Himself involved. On the one hand, the Papacy was at
peace with Naples. On the other, the Pope's Holiness
found His brilliant young Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio
Maria Sforza-Visconti to be exceedingly valuable ; and he
was own brother to that Don Ludovico Maria (detto II
Moro) against whom Naples was invoked. Momentous
consequences waited on His action.

-V- ■^ ^

^ •Ti- ■yv-

On the eleventh of December 1492, there arrived in Rome
Don Federigo de Aragona, Prince of Altamura, second son
of King Don Ferrando I, ostensibly to offer to the Pope's
Holiness the obedience of Naples, with congratulations on
His coronation. The royal envoy sumptuously was enter-
tained by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, whose chief
occupations at this period appear to have been the feeling
of the pulses of the Powers, and the search for a potentate
willing to be used against the Borgia.

Manifestations of goodwill between Papacy and Regno
pleased the Romans. The frontier of Naples was but a
day's ride from Rome ; and the Romans liked to feel that
beyond that frontier flourished a friend, not lurked a foe.
In private audience, however, Don Federigo said that the
assistance of the Pope's Holiness was required in a family
affair ; and he made it clear that the attitude of Regno to
Papacy would be determined by the extent to which the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI would go on behalf of Naples.

This was the case in question. King Matthias Corvinus

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of Hungary had married Madonna Beatrice, a bastard of
King Don Ferrando I. On the death of King Matthias
Corvinus, his childless widow Queen Beatrice had intrip-ued
to get the Hungarian crown settled upon King Wladislaw
of Bohemia, who, in return for her Majesty's services, had
promised to marry her. Such a promise of marriage was
equivalent to a betrothal, and a betrothal was only less
binding than an actual marriage in that it was capable of
being dissolved ; whereas a marriage was, and is, indis-
soluble. King Wladislaw of Bohemia had been crowned
King of Hungary through the exertions of Queen Beatrice.
She, preferring the situation of Queen Regnant to that of
Queen Dowager, had performed her part of the contract ;
and now King Wladislaw had changed his mind, and was
about to ask the Pope for a dispensation from the obligation
of fulfilling his promise of marriage. This was a grievous
insult to the bastard of the King of Naples, whose counter-
petition to the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was that no such
dispensation should be granted to King Wladislaw, and
that he should be compelled to perform his part of the
bargain. Nothing was said at this time regarding the
affair of the Duchess Isabella of Milan, in which the Regno
also was interested. The cases of queens take precedence
of those of duchesses.

The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, with the experience of
seven and thirty years of curial diplomacy behind Him,
required time in which to reflect upon His answer ; and
would enter into no immediate engagement with the
Neapolitan prince. Don Federigo, who imagined that the
Regno had but to ask and have, was much aggrieved ; and
his host. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, inflamed him with
sardonic sympathy, and eyed the Regno, for a purpose,
from that day forward. An uncouth pugnacious schemer
was this Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal. As a captain of
condottieri he might have captured a kingdom : but as an
ecclesiastic he was at all times utterly disedifying. The
Lord Alexander P.P. VI seems to have treated him with
admirable forbearance, with contemptuous indifference, than
which no attitude is more calculated to sting and irritate an
angry mediocrity. He had been allowed to proceed in his

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

turn to the cardinal-bishopric of Ostia without let or
hindrance : he had rank, riches, and power. But he was
discontented, jealous, filled with envy, hatred, malice, and
all uncharitableness.

* # #

It is imperatively important to be able to distinguish
between the Office and the Man ; and to avoid the exces-
sively vulgar error of confounding the general with the parti-
cular. The pontifical acts of Rodrigo, Who is called Alex-
ander P.P. VI, will compare favourably with those of any
Supreme Pontiff, from Simon, Who is called Peter P.P., to
Gioacchino Vincenzo Rafaele Luigi, Who is called
Leo P.P. XIII. His comportment as man, and Italian
despot, is another matter. The just necessity of the
distinction insistently is laid upon the student of His history.

Man does not yearn to please a person who is playing
ugly tricks upon him. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI
particularly did not yearn to please the King of Naples.
While the envoy of the Regno was displaying his royal
father's petition at the feet of the Father of princes and of
kings, the Pope's Holiness was digesting news of a trick
which had been played upon Him by the intrigues of King
Don Ferrando I.

Don Franciotto Cibo, bastard of the Lord Inno-
cent P.P. VIII, had been enriched by his Father with the
lordships of Cervetri and Anguillara. These were pontifical
fiefs, held by feudal tenure from the Pope. Being a silly
avaricious weakling, rather frightened of the responsibility
of baronage, Don Franciotto Cibo sold the said lordships
to Don Virginio Orsini for forty thousand ducats ; and went
to live at Florence under the protection of his brother-in-law
Don Piero de' Medici. Now Don Virginio Orsini had
borrowed those forty thousand ducats from the King of
Naples, who was his firm friend, and perfectly qualified to
understand the loan to be a super-excellent investment.
The lordships of Cervetri and Anguillara lay between the
Regno and the territories of the Republic of Florence ; and
their transference into the hands of Orsini, Naples' friend,
signified the opening of a road from Naples into Tuscany,
along which a Neapolitan army easily might travel, should

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King Don Ferrando be pleased to campaign in a northerly
direction.

It was Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti (detto II
Moro), the usurping Regent of Milan, who first saw the
serious portent of this move : but, though he communicated
his discovery to the Holiness of the Pope, he laboured
under a slight misapprehension ; for usurpers are the most
touchy of mankind, and see an enemy in everything which
they do not understand. The northern frontier of Tuscany
impinged upon the southern frontier of Milan. Now that
the southern frontier of Tuscany was connected, by Cervetri
and Anguillara, with the Regno, Don Ludovico Maria
suspected an alliance between Don Piero de' Medici and
King Don Ferrando I, between Tuscany and Naples, an
alliance which most possibly implied designs detrimental to
the duchy of Milan — after all the real Duchess Isabella
was Naples' bastard, thought Don Ludovico Maria, the
usurper — ; and he envoyed swift couriers to his brother
the Vicechancellor-Cardinal in Rome, with instructions to
advise the Pope's Holiness of the imbroglio.

That was the news of which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
chewed the cud at the time when He gave audience to the
Prince of Altamura. With His magnificent talent for
resolving diplomatic problems into their elements, from
which He could discard those that He deemed useless while
reserving those possessing salient features, the Pope's
Holiness concluded that the politics of Milan, of Tuscany,
of the Regno, and the affairs of their respective rulers, were
of secondary importance and altogether negligeable ; but
that the secret unauthorised transfer of papal fiefs into the
hands of dangerous malcontents of the very powerful House
of Orsini, required prompt decisive assertion of the rights
of the Pontifical Suzerain.

At the beginning of 149.;, Cardinal Ascanio Maria
Sforza-Visconti was found to be urging the Supreme
Pontiff to act against the illegal transfer of Cervetri and
Anguillara. Loyalty to his brother, the usurping Regent of
Milan, and his duty as Vicechancellor bound to maintain
the paramountcy of the Holy Roman Church — these make
clear his point of view.

97 G

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

A clashing of interests between Papacy and Regno was
an opportunity which Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere
greatly relished. He did not hesitate to take the part of
Naples. If he had one enemy whom he hated as perfervidly
as he hated the Pope, that enemy was Cardinal Ascanio
Maria Sforza-Visconti whose exertions on behalf of his
rival had deprived him of the tiara or triregno ; and, having
sworn that either he or Sforza-Visconti should quit the
Sacred College, he avidly seized the present chance of
belabouring the cardinal as well as the Pope. He had
the support of Orsini, naturally. Colonna, always more
Ghibelline than Guelf, was not unwilling to espouse the
cause of a man who went about saying that the Pope's
Holiness was plotting to ruin his reputation— his reputa-
tion !— and to deprive him of his dignities : and hence arose
a very singular and unusual combination.

The Papacy generally has been allied with Colonna or
with Orsini. Such was the importance of these houses,
that during many hundred years all European treaties and
concordats contained their names on one side or the other.
But here, for once in their mysterious and interminable
feud, these mighty barons of Rome, with all their collateral
branches and their myriads of armed retainers, were found
united in a common cause. The phenomenon may be
explained by the rise of other baronial houses, who were
becoming quite as numerous and quite as potent as Colonna
or Orsini ; and who were equally desirable as allies. The
most prominent of these, in 1493, were the Sforza and the
Cesarini. The Sforza descended from Don Giovanni
Muzio Attendolo (detto Sforza) ; and included the Sovereign-
Duchy of Milan, by the marriage of the great Francesco
with the heiress of Duke Giangaleazzo Visconti ; the
Sovereign-County of Santafiora, by the marriage of
Francesco's brother Bosio with the heiress of Aldo-
brandeschi ; and the Tyrannies of Pesaro, Chotignuola,
Imola and Forli. The Sforza blazon the lion rampant with
the holy flower of the quince for Santafiora, and the salvage
boy couped at the thighs issuant from a serpent statant for
Milan. The Cesarini were a Roman house of enormous
wealth and distinction, claiming a Cesarian origin. It was

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already allied with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI by the
marriage in 1482 of His bastard Madonna Girolama Borgia
with Don Giovandrea Cesarini. Its representative, Don
Gabriele Cesarini, was the Gonfaloniere of Rome, who
fought the Prior of the Caporioni for precedence at the
coronation of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Who, in person,
accorded the first place to Cesarini. Don Giangiorgio
Cesarini, the heir, was allied with Sforza by marriage with
Madonna Maria Sforza di Guido di Santafiora ; and Don
Giuliano Cesarini held office in the Apostolic Chamber. It
was a house which, during centuries, had been content with
secondary rank, while accumulating immense reserves of
power, now to be brought into action. These were the two
patrician Houses which the Pope's Holiness found ready to
His hand when Colonna leagued with Orsini against His
peace. In fact, Sforza and Cesarini were the right and left
hands of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, as Colonna or
Orsini were of His predecessors and successors.

Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, after relieving himself
of some treasonable speeches, considered Rome to be
unsafe; and fled down Tiber to his bishopric of Ostia,
where he fortified himself and advertised for mercenaries.

The word war, to the bloody men of valour of the end
of the fifteenth century, signified a game like that of chess.
The sole object of war was profit. It was undertaken
simply to deprive an enemy of his goods. Prisoners were
captured, and held to ransom. Cities and fortresses were
reduced by starvation, or by a display of overwhelming
force. But bloodshed — and this is noteworthy — was avoided
as far as possible ; and the game chiefly was played by
strategic marches, counter-marches, and manoeuvres. It
was a business, a profession, " not more hazardous than
that of a professional football-player." The superfluous
men of Europe, and the temperamental fighters, served as
hired mercenaries under the captains and the princes who
could pay their price and afford them a roystering life.
Patriotism, the honour of the fatherland, were unknown.
Except in the case of England, there was no national army.
When a position had been won, a city captured, the
conquerors satisfied themselves with the ransoms and the

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

richest spoils. If the citizens wished to avoid the incon-
venience of a sack, they collected a sum sufficient to pay off
the rank and file. Otherwise the mercenaries took the
women, and had licence to recoup themselves by pillage.
Resistance meant torture and death : but bloodshed was an
accident, not an essential of war.

The action of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere was an
invitation to the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to engage in war.
He had thrown down the gauntlet. He had made the first
move in the game ; and his gambit was a very fine one,
for the fortress of Ostia dominated Tiber mouth, and enabled
him to paralyse Rome by stopping sea-borne supplies.

Like all important characters, the Pope's Holiness was
nevrotic ; not by any means a coward, but quick to scent
danger, susceptible of momentary fright. Early in the
spring of 1493 He was going to a picnic, at the villa which
the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII had built for pontifical refresh-
ment at La Magliana, outside the walls ; and when a cannon
saluted His approach He was stricken with a sudden panic,
and galloped back to the Vatican amid the frank exe-
crations of His escort disappointed of their dinner.

Here was the situation. The Pope was comfortably
embroiled with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere and his allies
of Naples, of Colonna, of Orsini. To some extent His
interests tied Him to Sforza and Milan. Tuscany was un-
decided between the Pope and Naples. The other Powers
looked on.

While Don Ludovico Maria Sforza- Visconti was sug-
gesting an alliance between the Pope, the duchy of Milan,
and the Republic of Venice, to overawe the Neapolitan
Bond, King Don Ferrando was intriguing with a view to
discover whether he could make a better bargain with
the Sovereign- Pontiff than with Colonna -1- Orsini 4- della
Rovere. This was not treachery. It was merely the Nea-
politan method, of which all Italy was fully cognizant. The
King's Majesty sent envoys to Rome, to Milan, and to
Tuscany, to try to settle the Cervetri-Anguillara affair by
pacific means.

The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was well aware that no
confidence could be placed in King Don Ferrando I : but

The Roaring Blaze

by way of giving him a chance He proposed a marriage
between His bastard, Don Gioffredo Borgia, now of the age
of twelve years, and Madonna Lucrezia, a grand-daughter of
the Majesty of Naples. At the same time He gathered
troops and fortified the Vatican and the Mola of Hadrian,
with the gallery-passage, called Lo Andare, which connects
them, enabling Pope and cardinals to run, in time of danger,
from the Apostolic Palace to the impregnable fortress tomb
by Tiber.

The Republic of Venice flung itself into the arms of
Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti ; for the Doge and
Senate were dreadfully afraid lest the impassioned appeals
of the Duchess Isabella on behalf of her husband, the
pathetic Duke Giangaleazzo, should receive the attention of
Naples. If the said Duke Giangaleazzo should come to
owe his throne to King Don Ferrando I, then Milan would
be, to all intents and purposes, a fief of the Regno ; and to
have Naples lording it in Northern Italy would by no means
satisfy Venice, which, on this account, preferred alliance
with the usurping Regent, even at the cost of winking at
his usurpation of the Regency of Milan. Now Milan and
Venice in alliance were a menace to their own neighbours ;
and, acting on the principle that made those two Powers
one, the duchies of Mantua and Ferrara, and the Republic
of Siena, hastened to fall into line with them. This con-
catenation, being superior to anything that Naples could
exhibit, also caused the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to arrive
at a decision : and, on the twenty-fifth of April 1493, accom-
panied by an armed cavalcade of Sforza and Cesarini for
the ocular instruction of Colonna and Orsini, the Holiness
of the Pope proceeded through Rome to the Venetian church
of San Marco, on Piazza Venezia, where He ceremonially
published the Bull of League between the Papacy, the
duchies of Milan, Mantua, and Ferrara, and the Republics
of Venice and Siena ; after which, the river-port of Rome
at Ostia being in His enemies' hands. He began to fortify the
land-port of Rome at Civita Vecchia, by way of giving effect
to His warlike proclamation.

At this call of check, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere
howled aloud for a General Council to depose the Lord

lOI

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Alexander P.P. VI ; and Don Alonso de Aragona, Duke
of Calabria, wanted immediately to unite with Don Piero
de' Medici and the Signoria of Florence, and, aided by the
Colonna of Paliano and Marino and the Orsini of Gravina
and Bracciano, to assault Rome from the outer side, while
Colonna + Orsini, who were in the city, engaged in similar
diversions. But King Don Ferrando was too sly. He
had yet another piece to play. He knew, and none knew
better, that the territories of the Holy See during a long
course of centuries had been distributed among pontifical
relatives and favourites ; that, at present, the States of the
Church were smaller than an ordinary duchy ; and he had
heard of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI as a singularly affec-
tionate father, devoted to His children's interests. Where-
fore the Majesty of Naples conceived, and with absolute
correctness, that the Pope's Holiness intended, by hook or
by crook, by diplomacy, by marriages, or by war, to recover
the possessions of the Papacy, and to use them to promote
the fortunes of His family. Secondly, King Don Ferrando I
knew France to be Milan's northern neighbour ; and he saw
the exceeding possibility of an alliance between the usurping
Regent, Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti, and the
Christian King Charles VIII of France; a combination
which, with the Papacy, the duchies, and republics, already
joined in league, would be absolutely and permanently over-
whelming and disintegrating to the very Regno itself. To
turn the flank, as it were, to give France occupation in another
direction, he resolved on courting an alliance with Spain.

To this end he indited an invective against the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI, adopting all the gratuitous insults and
lying babble foamed out by the malignant Cardinal- Bishop
Giuliano della Rovere. "He leads a life that is abhorred
by all, without respect to the seat He holds." [Compare the
speeches of the Orators and contemporary dispatches.]
"He cares for nothing save to aggrandise His children by
fair means or by foul." [So far He had done nothing at
all, by foul means or by fair, for His children ; except to
deprive His reputed bastard Don Cesare (detto Borgia) of
the revenues of the cathedral of Cartagena, in favour of that
very Cardinal Giambattista Orsini who now deserted Him.]

The Roaring Blaze

"From the beginning of His pontificate He has done nothing
but disturb the peace." [This is partly true. The Pope's
Holiness wonderfully had done more than any preceding
Pontiff to restore good government and order and security
to Rome. But He had behaved, in a certain instance, in a
way that was extremely offensive to the Spanish ideal of
peace. According to the notions of King Don Ferrando I
de Aragona, himself a Spaniard — according to Spanish
notions, and the Majesty of Naples was a Spaniard writing
to Spaniards — the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was indeed a
disturber of the peace. But the facts are these. In 1492,
the horrible Spanish Inquisition — that frightful and diaboli-
cal atrocity constantly condemned by Rome — under the
guidance of the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada, had procured
the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. The Spaniards
have much of the Moor, a touch of the oriental, the element
of the human devil, in their blood. Throughout Christen-
dom the Jews were looked upon with horror, by no means
undeserved. Many long years before, England had cast
them out ; and now they were forced from Spain. The
sufferings, with which the fiendish Spaniard visited them,
were so fearful as to excite pity even in Papal Italy, whose
loathing of Jews was a habit of mind, an article of faith,
not an inhuman vice. Messer Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola (detto Fenice degli Ingegni) said : —

"The sufferings of the Jews, in which the glory of Divine Justice
" delights, were so extreme as to fill us Christians with commiseration.

Senarega said : —

"The matter {i.e., the expulsion of the Jews) at first sight seemed praise-
" worthy as regarding the honour done to our religion ; yet it involved
" some amount of cruelty, if we look upon them (the Jews) not as beasts
" but as men, the handiwork of God.

Many of this miserable race came to Rome, where,
under the expressed order of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
they were protected, and allowed to share in that security
of life and limb which He, at the beginning of His pontificate,
had ordained. The Romans did not like these Maranas,
as the Moorish Jews were called, any more than they liked,
or like, Catalans, or Franks, or Goths, or any other

103

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

foreigners save the English-speaking race ; and, following
hereditary instinct, there were occasional attempts at
persecution, the rigorous stamping out of which, by the
justice of the Pope, caused intermittent rioting and dis-
affection of the citizens who only could look upon the Jews
as fair game. That was the only disturbance of the peace
with which King Don Ferrando could charge the Holy
Father ; and it was an act of justice and humanity. But
the fifteenth century, in common with the nineteenth (the
twentieth is too young yet to be judged), was very wont to
give a bad name to the dog that it had failed to hang.]

■^ :Afc ^

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Any success that might have attended the rabid
calumnies of the Majesty of Naples was prevented by an
occurrence of the most startling species.

A mariner of Genoa, called Messer Cristoforo Colombi,
announced to the Spanish Court, in March 1493, the
astounding news of his discovery of a continent. An
explorer's ardour, combined with religious zeal, had made
him seek to extend the boundaries of Christendom. He
had set out in the hope of finding a few islands. He
returned to Europe solemnly asserting that he had found a
world. Universal curiosity was awakened, and a fresh
expedition planned, with which the intrepid mariner set
forth on a second voyage to prove, and to secure, his prize.
Meanwhile, Don Hernando and Dofia Isabella, the
Catholic King and Queen of Spain, thought it would be
prudent to bind this new world to their domain by a bond
that easily could net be broken. The Pope, as Ruler of the
World and Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ, was held to have
authority over all heathen lands, and to His Holiness an
envoy went from Spain commissioned to announce the dis-
covery, and to pray Him graciously to confirm it to the
Catholic King and Queen.

Precipitevolissi7nevolniente (no other word describes the
act) was issued a Bull, dated " At Rome by St. Peter's, the
year of our Lord's Incarnation, 1493, the fourth day of the
nones of May, and the first year of Our pontificate," giving
to Don Hernando and to Dofia Isabella, and to their heirs
and successors, all islands and continents, discovered or yet

104

The Roaring Blaze

to be discovered, in the western ocean, west and south of a
line to be drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole,
one hundred leagues west of the A9ores and Cape Verde
Islands. The language of this Bull is exquisitely touching;
strong, pregnant, earnest, and majestic, as the Authorised
Version of the Epistles of St. Paul. The motive un-
doubtedly is the motive of an Apostle to convert a world
to Christ. The grant is made to the Majesty of Spain,
with commands to send honest God-fearing learned and
expert men to teach the Christian Faith ; and the penalty
of excommunication latae sententiae is imposed upon any-
one, even royal or imperial, who shall interfere. This
supremely beautiful Pontifical Act, the Bull Inter caetera
of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, is given verbatim in
Raynaldus, sub anno 1493. So in return for the Borgia,
which Spain gave to Italy, Italy and the Borgia gave
Messer Cristoforo Colombi and the New World to Spain.

Don Hernando and Dofia Isabella, the Catholic King
and Queen, were Spaniards. And when that is said all is
said ; and all the hideous history of the New World under
Spanish domination is explained. Those sovereigns bore
no good- will for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI although He
was a Spaniard. They, like every other sovereign of
Europe, were quite prepared to harass and to flout an
unobliging Pope up to the verge of excommunications and
interdicts ; when they, of course, would cringe and cower like
the villainous usurper John Plantagenet : but the quick
granting of their petition in this matter of the New World,
the immense distinction which the Bull Inter caetera con-
ferred on them and on Spain, turned them, from suitors
prepared with impertinence, into the abjectly devoted
adherents of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, at least for the
time ; and absolutely prevented King Don Ferrando's
application for an anti-pontifical alliance from meeting with
success. This, no doubt, is that on which the Pope's
Holiness counted. Very seldom in life does a man so
clearly see his duty with the certainty of reward for its
prompt performance. And very rarely, in the pontificate
of the Lord Alexander P. P. VI, did He deign, so immediately
and so unreservedly, to grant a favour. He must have

105

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

perceived, with that marvellous instinct of His, which led
Him inevitably to the very roots of matters, that for once
the paths of duty and of pleasure coincided. Certainly
He unhesitatingly walked therein.

On the twelfth of June the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
married His bastard, Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, of the age
of fifteen years, to the Tyrant of Pesaro, Don Giovanni
Sforza, of the age of twenty-six years, with all the magnifi-
cence due to His secular rank as an Italian despot ; and
thereby set wagging the tongues of those who lamented the
decay of ecclesiastical discipline, and who could not dis-
tinguish between the dual and contradictory offices which
the Pope was expected to reconcile ; as well as the pens of
professional manufacturers of squibs and lampoons. The
wedding-banquet took place at the Vatican, in the presence
of the Pope, ten cardinals, and fifteen Roman patricians
with their wives. The Holy Father presented to the ladies
silver cups filled with sweetmeats, throwing them into their
bosoms ad konorein et laudeni 07niiipotentis Dei et Ecclesiae
Ro77tanae,s2iys the golden-mouthed, venomous, untrustworthy
historian, Messer Stefano Infessura. In the evening there
was dancing, with comedies of the conventional coarse but
common type. This event is one of the bases from which
disgusting charges have been levelled against the Lord
Alexander P. P. VI. It summarily may be stated that those
charges consist entirely of the unprintable gossip of enemies
or inferiors, and that not one of them satisfactorily can be
proved. That the Vicar of Christ should have condescended
so far is impossible ; that a temporal sovereign should
have condescended so far is probable, and, perhaps, regret-
table ; but the status of the guests, the ten cardinals, and
the fifteen Roman patricians with their wives, guarantees
the utter respectability of the Despot's little private party
from a contemporary point of view.

* * *

In June, also, arrived in Rome Don Diego Lopez de
Haro to offer to the Holiness of the Pope the homage and
obedience of Spain. These having been accepted, the
Orator proceeded to remonstrate with the Pope, in the name

1 06

The Roaring Blaze

of the Catholic King and Queen, regarding the asylum
extended to the Marafias who were fled from the Spanish
Inquisition to Rome. Thousands of these unfortunates
were encamped among the tombs on the Appian Way, and
had brought the plague with them. Spain execrated the
Papal tolerance, and wondered that the Holy Father, as
the Head of Christianity, should protect those whom Spain
had driven away as being enemies of the Christian Faith.
Further, the Spanish Orator said that the Christian King
Charles VIII of France was threatening to invade Italy
and to take advantage of the quarrels of the Italian Powers ;
wherefore he urged the necessity of peace, and an agree-
ment among the sovereigns of whom the Pope was chief.
By way of showing that concessions would ensure the
unanimity of Italy, he set forth a list of ecclesiastical
grievances that needed remedies ; grievances *' which, since
the days of the Council of Constance, had been standing
complaints against the Papacy, to be urged in all negotia-
tions for other purposes." {Creighton iv. 199.)

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Publicly Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti harped
upon the league between Venice, Milan, and the Papacy.
Privately he entered into a secret treaty with the Christian
King Charles VIII through Belgioso, Orator of Milan.
Being an usurper he trusted not even his allies : preferring
to have two strings to his bow, he believed that he could
consolidate his position only by disturbing the peace of
Italy.

Publicly, from his fortress of Ostia, that psychic epileptic,
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, continued to shout for
a General Council to depose his Rival. The abominable
character of this cardinal well may be exposed by stating
that he was endeavourinor to rend the Church and Christen-
dom with a Fortieth Schism, in order to satiate his personal
revenofe.

And, like Gallio, the Pope's Holiness cared for none of
these things — for Spain, for Milan, for the contemptible
cardinal. He believed in Himself, and in His Own power to
rule. At least. He officially had been saluted as Ruler of
the World.

107

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

The intrigues and invectives of the King" of Naples
deservedly having failed, his Majesty made the experiment
of a hostile demonstration. His second son, Prince Don
Federigo of Altamura appeared with eleven galleys at
Ostia on Tiber mouth ; and rapturously was hailed by that
traitor-cardinal-bishop, with the Colonna and Don Virginio
Orsini.

The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was willing to negotiate.
Borgian negotiations invariably meant that Borgia would
give its opponents something, but not the something that
they wanted, and always in such a way that it could not be
refused. The Naples -|- Colonna + Orsini -f- Cardinal Giuliano
della Rovere conspiracy had demanded Cervetri and
Anguillara for Orsini (and Naples) and the disgrace of the
Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti to
satisfy the spleen of him of Ostia. On the twenty-fourth
of July the cardinal, the Neapolitan prince, and Don Virginio
Orsini came to Rome to hear the pontifical terms, which
were : —

(a) That the Pope's Holiness would confirm Cervetri
and Anguillara to Don Virginio for life ; at his
death they would revert to the Holy See : but he
must pay into the pontifical treasury their price of
forty thousand ducats, which he previously had
paid to Don Franciotto Cibo :
(j3) That the Pope's Holiness was willing to forgive and
to show favour to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere :
but He refused to disgrace the Vicechancellor-
Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti :
(y) That the Pope's Holiness would consent to ally
Himself with the Royal House of Naples by the
marriage of His bastard, Don Gioffredo Borgia, to
Madonna Sancia, bastard of Don Alonso de
Aragona, Duke of Calabria and heir of King Don
Ferrando I. This agreement was ratified by
betrothal ; and Don Gioffredo set out for Naples
to see the girl, and to receive her dowry with
the title Prince of Squillace. The marriage was
postponed for the present, because neither bride nor
bridegroom had completed their thirteenth year.
io8

The Roaring Blaze

No sooner was the treaty of peace signed, than the
Sieur Perron de Basche, Orator of the Christian King
Charles VIII of France, arrived in Rome, armed with
instructions to prevent an alliance between Papacy and
Regno, and to obtain pontifical confirmation of the election,
by the Rouen chapter, of Messire Georges d'Amboise as
Archbishop. The Supreme Pontiff, by way of emphasising
His independent attitude to France, refused to receive the
Orator in audience, annulled the election of Messire
Georges d'Amboise, and named one of His Own court to
the Archbishopric of Rouen. This was what the twentieth
century timidly calls an " unfriendly act " ; and the Christian
King forthwith began to sympathise with Cardinal Giuliano
della Rovere's recent clamour for a General Council to
depose the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, and to meditate
thereon day and night. ^

•Tf' * ^

To strengthen His influence in the Sacred College by
adding creatures of His Own, at the Second Consistory of
the twentieth of September 1493, the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI named twelve new cardinals.

These were : —

(a) The Lord John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury,
Lord High Chancellor of England, whose virtues
have been praised by another English Chancellor,
the Blessed Sir Thomas More ; — Cardinal-
Presbyter of the Title of Santa Anastasia ;

(j3) The Lord Giovantonio di Sangiorgio ; — Cardinal-
Presbyter of the Title of San Nereo e Sant'
Achilleo ;

(7) Frere Jean Villiers de la Grolaye, Lord Abbot of
Saint Denys by Paris ; — Cardinal- Presbyter of the
Title of Santa Sabina ;

(S) The Lord Bernardino Lopez de Caravajal, Apostolic
Legate to Caesar Friedrich IV, the eloquent

1 Sdegnati di questa coUazione contro del Papa, il Re tenne il di medesimo
gran consiglio, dove furono proposte e trattate piu cose contro del Papa in
riformatione della chiesa. (Dispatch of 31 Aug. 1493, Canestrini, N^gociations
avec la Toscane. I. 249.)

109

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

preacher at the Conclave of 1492 ; — Cardinal- Pres-
byter of the Title of San Marcellino e San Pietro :

(f) The Lord Raymond Perauld,^ a Frenchman,
Apostolic Nuncio in Germany ; — Cardinal- Pres-
byter of the Title of San Giovanni e San Paolo :

(^) The Lord Cesare (detto Borgia), reputed bastard of
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, and of the age of
eighteen years ; — Cardinal- Deacon of Santa Maria
Nuova :

(ri) The Lord Ippolito d'Este, of the age of fifteen
years, a great athlete and fighter from boyhood to
youth, and a prince of the Royal House of Ferrara;
"tall he was of frame, brawny of sinew, mighty of
limb, strengthening his robustitude with exercises,
archery, and hurling javelins ; grace and charm
bloomed on the face of him ; his bright eyes
beamed with grave tranquillity, worthy of all praise ;
most royal was his whole aspect ; he was an expert
swimmer ; and with whatsoever weapons he adroitly
strove he innured himself to heat and cold and
night-long vigils " ; — Cardinal- Deacon of Santa
Lucia in Silice, alias in Orfea :

(0) The Lord Fryderyk Kasimierz Jagelone di Polonia,
son of King Kasimierz of Poland, Bishop of
Cracow ; — Cardinal- Deacon of Santa Lucia in
Septisolio, alias in Septizonio :

(<) The Lord Giuliano Cesarini (detto Giuniore),
Apostolic Prothonotary, Canon of the Vatican
Basilica ; — Cardinal- Deacon of San Sergio e San
Bacco :

(k-) The Lord Domenico Grimani, Apostolic Protho-
notary ; — Cardinal- Deacon of San Niccolo inter
Imagines :

1 There is a tale about this personage, that, having allowed himself to be
frightened by one of the calumnies of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, to the
effect that the Pope expected to be paid for the red hat (in addition to the
six hundred ducats which every cardinal offers in return for the cardinalitial
sapphire ring), he became so nervous on Ash Wednesday, when it was
his office to scatter ashes on the head of the Sovereign Pontiff, as to substitute
for the formula of administration, " Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in
pulverem reverteris," the words " Memento, homo, quia Papa es, et ego
pecunias non habeo."

The Roaring Blaze

(X) The Lord Alessandro Farnese, Apostolic Prothono-
tary (nicknamed " Cardinal Petticoat," on account
of the Pope's partiality for his sister, Madonna
Giulia Orsini nata Farnese) ; — Cardinal- Deacon of
San Cosma e San Damiano :
{fi) The Lord Bernardino de' Lunati, Apostolic Pro-
thonotary, friend of the Cardinal-Vicechancellor ; —
Cardinal- Deacon of San Ciriaco a//e Terme
Diocleziane.^
The vigour of this deed struck Cardinal Giuliano della
Rovere and his friend King Don Ferrando into frantic
silence. By a mere act of His Sovereign Will the Holiness
of the Pope immensely had increased His Own potentiality.
Two of the new creatures were scions of reigning dynasties,
whose loyalty thereby was secured. The virtue and
eloquence of the English cardinal were as twin towers of
strength. The two French creatures were as a sop to
France. The minor diaconate conferred on Don Cesare
(detto Borgia) gave him a standing, from which the splen-
dour of his youth might do great things. And the other
cardinals were proved adherents, who, by being made to
owe their promotion to the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
became bound (in so far as human foresight went) to His
interests by the bond of gratitude. It was a most para-
lysing and disheartening stroke for the enemies of the
Sovereign Pontiff; and the year 1493 ended amid renewed
demands for a General Council from Cardinal Giuliano
della Rovere, and renewed invectives from the Majesty of
Naples.

On the twenty-fifth of January 1494, King Don Fer-
rando I died, in the seventieth year of his age and the thirty-
fifth of his reign. He was a cautious and experienced poli-
tician ; and, since the Lord Pius P.P. II, Lorenzo de' Medici,
and the great Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti, the greatest

1 Infessura, in Eccard II. 2015. Alberi, Rel. Ven. Sen. III. 314. Rivista
Cristiana II. 261. Ugolini, Storia . . . d'Urbino II. Doc. 13. Ciacconi, Vitae
Pontificum, sub anno. Gregorovius, Geschichts de Stadt VII. 340. Matarazzo,
Cron. di Perugia in Archivio Storico xvi. See I. pt. ij. 3.

Ill

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

secular statesman of his century. His policy was directed
to the preservation of Italy from French invasion, and to
the destruction of the Papal States. He was not harsh in
his dealings with his subjects : but to his barons and to his
opponents he behaved with cruelty and treachery. He
liked to have his enemies always near him, either alive in
the dungeons of his palace, or dead, and embalmed, and
clothed in their habits as they lived. Yet he died regretted ;
for his heir, the thick-haired, thin-lipped, narrow-eyed, fat-
jowled, asymmetrically-featured Don Alonso de Aragona,
Duke of Calabria, enjoyed a reputation for violence
and brutality the bare idea of which created universal
terror.

The game of politics entered on a new phase. The
Christian King Charles VHI of France was burning for an
opportunity of asserting himself ; and had collected an army,
ostensibly for a Crusade against the Great Turk, the Sultan
Bajazet, really for purposes of French aggrandisement —
purposes yet undefined. He was a self-conceited little
abortion, this Christian King, of the loosest morals even for
a king, of gross Semitic type, with a fiery birth-flare round
his left eye, and twelve toes on his feet hidden in splayed
shoes, which set the fashion in foot-gear for the end of the
fifteenth century in Italy ; and, like all vain litde men, he
was anxious to cut a romantic and considerable figure. He
announced a claim to the crown of Naples.

This made it necessary for the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
to compare the advantages of France as an ally with the
Regno ; and, in the meantime, that He might lead the
Christian King to declare himself with more particularity,
the Pope's Holiness addressed a Brief to him in which the
subject of Naples was not named : but which assured him of
pontifical favour, and gave him leave to pass through Rome
with his army on the way to his contemplated Crusade.
There was dissatisfaction in the Sacred College about the
matter of the Archbishopric of Rouen ; and some of the
cardinals were beginning to think that the time was come
for turning coats, especially as it was known that the Orator
of France had made overtures of friendship on the part of
his sovereign to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere.

112

The Roaring Blaze

The Supreme Pontiff finally concluded that He would
rather have an ally on His frontier, than an ally whose
territories were separated from His by the domains of other
princes. He decided to leave France out of the question ;
and to recognize the heir of the late King Don Ferrando I.
Accordingly He conveyed this news to Don Alonso de
Aragona Duke of Calabria, adding that He would envoy
a Legate to Naples to concede investiture and to perform the
ceremony of coronation. At the same time, the Pope's
Holiness sent the Golden Rose to the Christian King ; and
it is hard to know whether this gift symbolized consolation
or contempt. If the former, then the gift should have been
a sword ; for the Sword is the pontifical gift to kings. If
the latter, then it was bitterly appropriate, for the Golden
Rose is the pontifical gift to queens. Yet only with diffi-
culty one can conceive of the Pope as deliberately setting
himself to provoke a reigning sovereign who heads a
mobilized army ; and the act may have been merely one of
those slipshod performances which the greatest geniuses^,
from time to time, provide to remind mankind of the maxim
non semper arciun tendit Apollo. But all the same the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI was a very strong man, guilty of
hiding none of His human weaknesses.

When the Pope issued His Bull on this matter of the
Investiture in Public Consistory, storms ensued. Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere, again diplomatically deprived of his
Neapolitan friends, flitted from Rome to Ostia with the
pontifical condottieri at his heels. From Ostia, he shipped
to Genoa, and made haste to present himself to the pink-
eyed Majesty of France. The French Orators in Rome
shrieked "We are betrayed" in the consecrated formula ;
and hurried to safe places. And the fortress of Ostia capi-
tulated to the Pope.

In May, the Lord Giovanni Borgia, Archbishop of
Monreale and Cardinal-Priest of the Title of Santa Susanna,
received his Brief as Apostolic Ablegate, and went to Naples
to crown the new king. The fourteen-year-old Don
Gioffredo Borgia accompanied his Most Worshipful cousin ;
and was married on the coronation-day, the seventh of May,

Madonna Sancia, bastard of King Don Alonso II, who

113 H

chronicles of the House of Borgia

confirmed to him the title of Prince of Squillace with a
revenue of forty thousand ducats. Also, as an earnest of his
gratitude to the Pope, the King of Naples conferred the
Principalities of Teano and Tricarico on Don Juan Fran-
cisco de Lancol y Borja, eldest surviving bastard of the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI (who already had procured for
him the Spanish duchy of Gandia ; ) and enriched Cardinal
Cesare (detto Borgia) with Neapolitan benefices. The
Papacy and the Regno now were a Dual Alliance.

In Italy of the fifteenth century, men's minds chiefly
were occupied with the accumulation and disposition of
matters connected with the intellect and the tastes. The
Elect- Emperor Maximilian, who in 1493 succeeded the
Pacific Caesar Friedrich IV on the throne of Central Europe
(called the Holy Roman Empire) was adding outlying
territories to the possessions of his dynasty, the Habsburg
House of Austria. Spain was freeing herself, by means of
steel and faggot, from her brain, i.e., the Moors and Jews ;
and in exploiting her New World. England was enjoying
peace and a new dynasty, since the close of the War of the
Roses in 1485. France had made peace, at a price, with
King Henry VII Tudor in 1492 ; and with Spain, at the
cost of her frontier provinces of Cerdogne and Rouissillion,
in 1493. Lastly, the Christian King Charles VIII of
France had pacified the rage of the Elect-Emperor Maxi-
milian, whom he had robbed of his betrothed the Duchess
Anne of Bretagne, by ceding to him the greater part of
Burgundy. For the rest, nearly all the kingdoms, duchies,
and fiefs of France had fallen into the hands of the vaunting
Charles, by conquest, inheritance, lapse or marriage.
Finding himself at the head of a great army experienced in
the art of war, and with a domain smiling with prosperity,
he looked for fresh fields to conquer. The chivalric glamour
of the Crusade had by no means faded : it dazzled the pink
eye of France : and, at one time, undoubtedly the Christian
King intended to march on the Muslim Infidel, now settled
in Europe and unmolested. But, with the death of King
Don Ferrando I, the fickle Frenchman revived an old
claim of the House of Anjou to the crown of Naples, in-

1x4

The Roaring Blaze

trigued with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and brought
his veteran army south to Lyons ; where he spent his time
in lubricity, until he should have felt the pulses of the Italian
Powers with reference to his undertaking. French envoys
reported to him that the Papacy was allied with Naples,
and Naples with Don Piero de' Medici of Tuscany ; that
Don Filiberto the Fair, (the boy-duke of Savoja, married to
the Elect Emperor's daughter Anne,) with Duke Ercole
d'Este of Ferrara, the Marquesses of Monserrat and Saluzzo,
and the Republic of Venice, were neutral. The auguries
w^ere not propitious for France ; but the Christian King,
emboldened by the presence, and attentive to the rhodo-
montades of. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and stupidly
believing it possible to reduce a Pope by fear, joined in the
duet and cried for a General Council. Indeed, he placed
more confidence in the virtue of this threat than in his army ;
for he definitely threatened the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
with deposition and deprivation of the Apostolic dignity, not
by force of arms, but by canonical proof of His simoniacal
election — unless He would concede to France the crown of
Naples. (Corio, Storie di Milano. Ill 525)

It is very difficult to understand these shouters for a
General Council. They were so clever, so logical, in other
matters, that it is perfectly impossible for them to have been
unaware of the extreme futility of their cry. They could not
have been ignorant : then they must have been malignant.
Suppose that an assemblage calling itself a General Council
had been convened by the Cardinal- Bishop of Ostia and the
Majesty of France, and had proved to its own satisfaction
that Cardinal Rodrigo de Lan9ol y Borja had bought, by
bribery, the votes of his brother-cardinals, raising himself
by these means to the throne of God's Vicegerent ; what
end would have been served ? There was a moral but no
legal prohibition then, as already has been shewn, to prevent
a cardinal from buying votes, if he could find cardinals
criminal enough to sell. The money-changers were, as now,
in possession of the Temple ; and the whip of small cords
still on the Knees of God.

Suppose that a self-called General Council had decreed
the deposition of the Pope on the ground of simony ; the

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

decrees of a General Council are ineffective until they have
been promulgated with the expressed sanction of the Roman
Pontiff Is it probable that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
that the sanctimonious Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, that
any human man, would sanction the promulgation of the
decree that ordained his own deposition ? If he did so
declare himself to be no Pope, what would be the value of
such a declaration ? If he were Pope, he would not ; if he
were not Pope he could not, depose himself. Then what
would have been the good, (if the Sokratic method be so
far permitted,) of a self-called General Council which only
could compile ineffectual decrees ?

We are dealing with this matter in its human aspect
only. Humanity was master of the mighty then, as now ;
Morality of the humble and meek. Suppose that a self-
called General Council had decreed the deposition of the
Pope : what would have happened ? This — the Sacred
College would have split into two or more factions ; let us
say two, to keep the argument in reasonable bounds. The
Lord Alexander P.P. VI would have headed one faction ;
the envious Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere the other.
Both would have gone into Conclave ; the one in Rome,
the other in France. The Roman Conclave would have
affirmed the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to be the Pontiff-
Remnant. The French conclave w^ould have elected
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who incontinently would
have blossomed forth as Pseudopontiff Julius II. Each
would have created cardinals. Each would have ad-
ministered as much of the Church and Christendom as he
could have persuaded to submit to his administration.
There would have been a Pontiff in Rome, a pseudopontiff
in France. The sheep of Christ's Flock would have been
neglected, while the shepherds exchanged anathemas. It
all had happened before — many times before. It would
have been the Fortieth Schism. In course of time, death
would claim the Pontiff or the pseudopontiff. His party
would replace him. In course of time subdivision would
take place, a schism in a schism. A section of cardinals
would secede from Pontiff, or from pseudopontiff ; call them-
selves tho Sacred College in Conclave, and elect a second

ii6

The Roaring Blaze

pseudopontiff. Christendom would have been torn asunder.
The crime would have been capable of infinite development.
All had been seen before, many times before — last, in this
identical Fifteenth Century — the century of the Thirty-ninth
Schism of the Holy Roman Church, the Thirty-ninth Rend-
ing of the Seamless Robe of Christ.

And that was the atrocious turpitude to which Revenge
was leading Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and Vanity was
leading the Christian King Charles VIII, all light-heartedly.
# # #

Being now in amity with Colonna and Orsini through
the Neapolitan alliance, as well as with Sforza and Cesarini,
the Holiness of the Pope proceeded to the Regno for the
purpose of concerting a plan of campaign with King Don
Alonso II, whom He met at Vicovaro on the fourteenth of
July. There it was arranged that the King should hold the
Abruzzi provinces with part of the Neapolitan army, while
his son, Don Ferrandino de Aragona, with another part
should make a swift advance on Milan by way of the
Romagna, sending out flying columns to sweep the country
free from rebels ; and, after expelling the usurping Regent,
Don Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti, and restoring Duke
Giangaleazzo to the throne of Milan, he should force the
French to engage in Lombardy. Meanwhile, Don Virginio
Orsini with the pontifical condottieri was to protect the
Papal States ; and Don Federigo de Aragona, brother to
King Don Alonso II, was to take the Neapolitan fleet,
capture Genoa, and command the northern coast.

No better plan could have been invented for a war of
the chess-game species : but in two places it was weak. It
would occupy too long in performance ; for the French army
was on Milan's frontier which half the length of Italy
separated from Naples. It caused the defection of some
Sforza : it alienated the Supreme Pontiff from His vice-
chancellor, His closest friend, for the Neapolitan scheme
involved the expulsion from Milan of the brother of Cardinal
Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, who thereupon became
neutral, Sforza holding by Sforza.

Before the Regno was ready, the French fleet reached
Genoa, and the P"rench army crossed the Alps to Milan.

117

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Admiral Don Federigo de Aragona, finding Genoa in his
enemy's hand, led the Neapolitan galleys to Porto Venere
on the Gulf of Spezzia, only to sustain a repulse which
caused him to retire to Livorno to repair his fleet. Seeing
from which direction he might expect attack, the Christian
King garrisoned Genoa with Swiss mercenaries under Duke
Louis d'Orleans. On the eighth of September, the Admiral of
Naples took Rapallo, a little city six leagues from Genoa, and
landed troops. The French commander made an accipitrine
swoop from Genoa, cut up the squadrons of Naples, and
put Rapallo to sack and pillage for entertaining them. All
Italy was amazed, paralyzed with horror, at war conducted
on these bloodthirsty lines. The idea of being killed, except
perhaps accidentally by being trampled underfoot in a rout,
or in a simple personal quarrel, was terrible to people accus-
tomed to battles which were processions, and sieges which
were decorative occupations for gentlemen of leisure.
Admiral Don Federigo led the remnant of his fleet to
Naples without an hour's delay.

Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti
now became aggressive, and successfully detached from the
Pope the Houses of Colonna and SavelH ; (the last, until
their dynasty became extinct, held the office of Hereditary
Marshal of the Holy Roman Church.) Colonna and
Savelli then collected their retainers and menaced the
Eternal City. On the eighteenth of September Don Fabrizio
Colonna recaptured Ostia, and held it in the name of its
renegade Cardinal- Bishop, French galleys transporting
troops anchored in the mouth of Tiber. Crippled Naples
dared not to advance on Milan leaving Rome unprotected.
Then Madonna Caterina Sforza-Riario, countess and witch,
(daughter of the great Francesco, and widow of the infamous
Count Girolamo Riario of the Pazzi Conspiracy,) declared
for France in her citadel of Imola, and made things worse
for Naples and the Papacy by showing them that an enemy
was in their midst. In this strait, and having no sovereign
friend in Europe save the Majesty of Naples, the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI applied to the Great Turk, the Sultdn
Bajazet. That wily oriental agreed to help, on condition
that his brother and rival, the Sultdn Djim, long years held

ii8

The Roaring Blaze

hostage by the Papacy, should be delivered to his tender
mercies. This the Pope's Holiness refused, not caring to
connive at fratricide ; and so completed the isolation of Him-
self and King Don Alonso H.

On the sixth of October, the Supreme Pontiff thundered
from the Vatican a demand for the restitution of Ostia,
(held by Don Pierfrancesco Colonna (?) ) on pain of the
Greater Excommunication. He " fills a great place in
history because he so blended his spiritual and temporal
authority as to apply the resources of the one to the purposes
of the other." [North British Revieiv.) At the same time,
having intelligence of a Colonna plot to capture the Sultdn
Djim on behalf of France, He moved His mysterious ward
from the Vatican by way of Lo Andare to theMola of Hadrian
on Tiber ; and sent the Lord Francesco de' Piccolhuomini,
Cardinal of Siena, as Apostolic Envoy to the Majesty of
France. But the Christian King would not receive him,
saying that he was coming to Rome to see the Pope Himself.^

.J/, Jii. JA.

w W T?

The Sultdn Djim was a Mystery — the Fifteenth-Century
equivalent for the Man in the Iron Mask. The brother
and rival of the Great Turk, the Sultdn Bajazet, who
reigned at Constantinople, he was given as a hostage to the
Knights of Rhodes at a time when Bajazet wished to win
the good graces of the Christian Powers, and to rid himself
of a dangerous menace to his throne's security. The Great
Turk offered to pay forty thousand ducats every year, so
long as the Sultan Djim was kept away from Byzantium ;
and he sent also the celebrated emerald, on which is carved
an Image of our Divine Redeemer, to the Lord Innocent
P. P. VIII. After a long detention, Frere Pierre d'Aubusson,
Grand-Master of the Knights of Rhodes and Cardinal-
Deacon of Sant' Adriano, transferred this valuable hostage
to the Pope for greater security. The Sultan Djim was
accorded apartments in the Vatican Palace, and kept a court
of his own there in oriental luxury. The crumpled roseleaf
of his existence was his constant fear lest his brother should

1 " Aiunt etiam multo vulgo inter illos iactaii, regem Roman venturum et
statum Romanae Ecclesiae reformaturum. (Letter from Cardinal of Siena to
Pope, from Lucca, IIIL Nos. 1494.)

119

chronicles of the House of Borgia

envenom him ; and envoys from the Great Turk were only
allowed to enter his presence when rigorous and ceremonial
precautions had been taken ; — for example, an envoy bring-
ing a letter from Bajazet was compelled to lick it all over,
outside and inside, under Djim's own eyes, before the last
would touch it. The Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, and His
successor the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, regarded the
Sultdn Djim as a precious guarantee for the good conduct
of the Great Turk. " As long as Djim is in Our hands,
Bajazet continually will be uneasy, and neither raise armies,
nor molest the Christians ; " wrote the Lord Innocent P.P.
VIII. Later, the Great Turk conceived an alarm lest his
discontented mamelukes should depose him in favour of his
brother ; and he proposed to pay a hundred and twenty
thousand ducats to the Pope for the restoration of the
Sultan Djim : undoubtedly intending to put him out of the
way according to the methods observed by oriental poten-
tates in reference to their rivals. But the Lord Innocent
P.P. VIII refused to have art or part in crime, though He
would have been very glad of the money for His family ;
and the Sultan Djim continued to remain in Rome. The
•lame policy was pursued by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
notwithstanding that the Great Turk had ceased to send the
yearly forty thousand ducats, thus making his brother the
pensioner, as well as the ward, of the Papacy. Then in
October 1494, when the Eternal City was about to be the
scene of war and tumult, the Pope's Holiness placed His
ward for safety in the Mola of Hadrian, the fortress-tomb
which also was His own refuse.

# # *

On the same day when Admiral Don Federigo de
Aragona fled with the Neapolitan fleet from Rapallo to
Naples, the Christian King followed his army across the
Alps. Being but a shallow-pated Frenchman, enervated
with the most horrible of all diseases, he already was in a
quandary : he had no money wherewith to pay his troops ;
his march for some weeks would lie through friendly
territory, and, until he reached the pontifical states, he could
find no cities to sack for the appeasing and encouragement
of his mercenaries. To meet him, hurried Don Ludovico

^■na/U&i Vnr cJ^'J^^ta^n^:^.

The Roaring Blaze

Maria Sforza-Visconti, also in a quandary : he was an
usurping regent, with his legitimate sovereign under lock
and key ; and he was going to meet a legitimate sovereign-
regnant. Whether Don Ludovico Maria would complete
a little loan, was the question agitating the mind of the
Christian King. Whether the Majesty of France would
want to champion his Order, to release his brother sovereign
and place him on his throne, and to behave severely and
unpleasantly to an usurping regent, was the difficulty of
Don Ludovico Maria. The two met at Asti. The
Christian King at once broached his trouble ; and Don
Ludovico Maria, with his capacious Sforza brain-pan and
his determined Sforza jaw, instantly perceived that he could
recommend himself by being useful. He advised France
rapidly to advance southward through the Romagna where
rich spoils awaited him. And he found the means. Of
the man who will lend money at the very moment when it
is urgently required, none but the very best opinion can be
formed. The Christian King was quite prepared to accept
Don Ludovico Maria's own estimation of himself, now.
It was even safe to let him see the pathetic sovereign of
Milan in his prison.

After being detained a few weeks by that which Italians
call the French disease, because it was introduced into Italy
by this Christian King, Charles VIII dawdled onto Pavia;
and visited Duke Giangfaleazzo Sforza-Visconti. The
condition of that luckless prince was scandalous in the
extreme. He was of the age of five and twenty years.
He had been a prisoner during fifteen years. He was
decrepid of body, helpless and dull of mind. His only joy
in life was in his Duchess Isabella and in his four-year-old
son, for whose protection he piteously entreated the
Christian King. France put on a sympathetic aspect — it
was perhaps the most gracious moment in the little creature's
life — ; the nostrils of his ham-shaped nose wore an air of
disgust at Duke Giangaleazzo's suffering ; the glare of his
boiled eyes in their congenital flush, and the severe fat line
of his mouth, horrified the usurping Regent. Had the
money of Don Ludovico Maria been in the coffers of any
one just then except the Christian King's, undoubtedly

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

right would have been done by the might of France. But,
with promises to return, with excellent intentions to attend
to the affairs of Milan w^hen Naples should have been
reduced with Milan's money, the Christian King was
persuaded to hasten on to Piacenza.

There, on the twenty-first of October, news came to him
that the prince whom he had left in his prison, Duke Gian-
galeazzo Sforza-Visconti, was dead; and that Don Ludovico
Maria had proclaimed himself, and had been accepted as,
Duke of Milan. It was also said that the uncle had
envenomed the nephew, having observed him to have
gained the sympathy of France, and fearing lest that
sympathy should restore him to his throne. It may have
been so : but there is no evidence whatever on the subject
beyond the mere assertion. But it equally might have been
the effect of concentrated despair, at seeing deliverance
come and pass away, acting on a body, naturally weak,
worn by passion and imprisonment, which killed Duke
Giangaleazzo Sforza-Visconti of Milan. The Fifteenth
Century (and also the first decades of the Sixteenth) was so
radically ignorant of the art and science, as well of venoms,
as of their practical exhibition, that, unless direct in addition
to circumstantial evidence be forthcoming, mere unproved
charges based on "on dit," "aiunt," " fertur," or " dicant,"
may be disregarded and a natural cause of death assigned.

^ ^ .Ai.

-3t- "iv* -TV"

Florence, capital city of Tuscany and ancient friend of
France, was in a critical condition. Lorenzo de' Medici
was just dead. His son, Don Piero had succeeded him.
Don Piero 's brother Messer Giovanni, raised to the purple
at the age of thirteen years, red-hatted at seventeen, was a
Cardinal of Rome. The genius of the great Lorenzo had
made him disguise his power. He had married at his own
mother's bidding Madonna Clarice Orsini, a patrician of
Rome. His sons, educated by Canon Angelo Ambrogini
(detto Poliziano), had grown up intellectual, grand, and gay,
with an overweening sense of their own consequence ; and,
when the sceptre fell into his young inexperienced hands,
Don Piero forgot his father's advice, " Remember that thou
art but a citizen of Florence, even as am I ; " and he behaved

The Roaring Blaze

autocratically, despotically, independently, to the immense
antipathy of the Lily-City.

When the Majesty of France began his interference with
Italian politics, Don Piero de' Medici and Florence, being
contracted to the Regno, declined the offer of a French
alliance. The Christian King retorted by banishing Flor-
entine merchants from France. This gave occasion for the
enemies, (which, in common with all great Houses, Medici
had) to blaspheme, muttering of the evils of a tyranny, of the
advantages of a republic : and Don Piero's cousins, Don
Giovanni and Don Lorenzino, fled to the Christian King at
Piacenza ; saying that not Florence, but Don Piero only,
was the foe of France.

Fra Girolamo Savonarola, friar of the Religion of St.
Dominic, became a prominent and responsible figure in this
imbroglio. Ecclesiastically he was a subject of the Do-
minican Congregation of Lombardy, who was led to desire
independence and a pied a terre in Florence. Don Piero
de' Medici, seeing naught amiss, supported his application
to Rome for the separation of the Tuscan Dominicans from
allegiance to the Lombard Congregation ; for, it was urged,
the erection of a separate Congregation for Lombardy
would add to the dignity of Florence, and would be a slight
to Milan. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, when the case
was laid before Him in 1493, was inclined to favour Milan
on account of the Vicechancellor-Cardinal who was brother
to the usurping Regent : but, on the advice of Cardinal
Oliviero Carafa, who officially had examined the matter on
its merits, and who reported in favour of Don Piero de'
Medici and the weird friar, the Pope's Holiness issued the
Bull of Separation on the twenty-second of May that same
year. F"ra Girolamo Savonarola then transferred himself
to the new Tuscan Conofregation, was elected Prior of San
Marco and Vicar-General ; and so became the absolute
ruler of the Dominicans in Florence, and subject only to the
General of the Religion of St. Dominic, and to the Pope,
in Rome.

He was a truly pious man, of the hard ascetic type, and
very masterful. He used his independence rigorously to
reform his Convent of San Marco, with, for a wonder, the

123

chronicles of the House of Borgia

complete concurrence of his friars ; and so he formed a
centre of the exclusively religious life. He would make no
compromise whatever. He would have God entirely served ;
and countenanced no paltering- with Mammon. He utterly
spat upon and defied the World. He burned every pretty
worldly thing. Lewd lovely Florence executed a quick
change, and followed him in sackcloth and ashes. The
alluring melody of Lorenzo de' Medici's Canti Carnaleschi
was drowned in the chaunting of the Miserere tnei Deus and
the Seven Penitential Psalms with Litanies ; while dis-
ciplines and scourges in the public streets fell like flails
on youth's white tlesh. Fra Girolamo preached penance
in the Advent of 1493. In the Lent of- 1494, he preached
from the book of Genesis. When he arrived at Noe's
Ark, he dwelled upon it ; his subject fascinated him ; each
plank, each nail, became a symbol : but the moral of his
allegory was, " Enter the Ark of Salvation that ye may
escape the wrath to come."

Florence was disturbed by expectation of the French
invasion ; which, said Fra Girolamo, (mixing his metaphors
in the only way that the vulgar really understand) was the
Scourge of God for the Purification of the Church. In
September, he preached again. Visions came to him ;
and he preached of them in parables. His success, his
ever-growing power, produced in him an effect like
inebriation. Not yet having lost his self-control, he was
able to see his danger. He made an effort, and ceased to
preach. His brain was in a ferment ; sleeplessness gnawed
the remnant of his physical strength. Again he mounted
the pulpit of San Marco, and thundered like a prophet,
like a seer, not his own words now, but " Thus saith The
Lord." He claimed eio-Trt'o?/ — Divine Afflatus — Inspiration.
Humanly speaking, he had gone out of his mind — was mad.

The excitement of Florence became a frenzy. " Behold,"
Fra Girolamo Savonarola tremendously declaimed, " Be-
hold I bring a flood of waters on the earth ! " And the
French army entered Italy.

Florence was half-dead with terror, terror of the French,
terror of the Wrath to Come. She had exasperated the
Christian King, was disunited in herself, and she had no

124

The Roaring Blaze

troops. Yet — she might resist. On her frontier were the
strong fortresses of Sarzanella and Pietrasanta. A few-
resolute patriots might hold the mountain-passes on the
road through Lunigiana ; and an initial check which ruined
French prestige would restore self-confidence to Florence.
This was the time of the trial of the stuff of Don Piero
de' Medici ; who, being in three minds, failed to stand.
First, he sent his brother-in-law, Don Paolo Orsini, to
garrison Sarzanella. Secondly, he quavered, because the
Florentines appeared sulkily to him. Thirdly, he dallied
with the notion of submission to the Christian King. From
the fortress of Pietrasanta he whined for a safe-conduct.
Arrived in the French camp he collapsed : lying prostrate
at the twelve-toed feet of the Majesty of France, he im-
plored pardon for his impertinence in thinking to defend
his fatherland ; and he offered reparation. He assented to
the French demand for the withdrawal of the Tuscan army
from the Romagna ; for the castles of Sarzana, Sarzanella,
Pietrasanta, Pisa, and Livorno, to be held as pledges until
Naples should capitulate ; for a forced-loan of two hundred
thousand ducats ; the pledges immediately to be delivered
and a treaty signed at Florence. The French had never
dreamed that the road should open to them as though by
miracle ; and by simplest Induction they said that God was
on their side.

Florence was dismayed. Don Piero de' Medici stayed
with the French : his brothers were in the vast Medici
Palace (now Palazzo Riccardi) at the corner of Via Larga,
which Michellozzo built for mighty Cosmo. " It is time to
make an end of this government by children and to recover
our liberty," said the grave and sterling Don Piero Capponi ;
and the Signoria sent out an embassage to undo the
mischief There were five ambassadors, including Fra
Girolamo Savonarola whom Florence loved, and Don
Piero Capponi whom she admired. They left the city on
the sixth of November with plenary powers to modify the
disgraceful conditions of surrender. On the seventh, they
found the Christian King at Lucca ; and followed him to
Pisa. He received them very coldly, saying that he
would arrange no terms except in Florence. To diseased

125

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

France the degenerate Fra Girolamo forthwith prophesied,
" Know thyself for an instrument in the hands of the Lord,
" Who hath sent thee to heal the woes of Italy and to
" reform the prostrate Church. But if thou dost not shew
" thyself just and pitiful, if thou respectest not Florence
" and her people, if thou forgettest the work for which
" the Lord hath sent thee, then He will choose another
'' in Thy place, and in His Wrath engulph thee. I speak
" in the name of the Lord." {Savonarola s Compendium
Revelatiommi. )

On the eighth of November, Don Piero de' Medici
reappeared in Florence. The City of Lilies knew that
Don Paolo Orsini held the Porta di San Gallo for him,
with troops disposed about the district ; and suspected that
he would summon her citizens and force himself upon them
as Dictator. On the ninth, suspicion redoubled, because
he went with an imposing retinue to the Palace of the
Siofnoria where the maoristrates were in conclave. The
door was shut : a voice bade him enter by the postern, but
alone. Don Piero de' Medici turned away. A partisan of
Medici in the Signoria followed him, and brought him
back. In attempting the little gate, there was some scuffle,
some dispute ; and the gate was slammed upon him in a
gathering crowd which cried " Away — away — and leave
the Signoria in peace." In a storm of hissing where stones
were flying Don Piero de' Medici flashed out his sword, —
and — irresolutely — let it fall. His escort closed him in,
and hurried him to old Cosmo's palace, where all of the
few Medici were arming. Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici,
not nineteen years of age, risked his sacred person — risked,
because a Florentine mob had flung an archbishop in
pontificals (Archbishop Salviati of Pisa) at a rope's end
from a window ; and bleached with mortal terror the visage
of a boy-cardinal (the Lord Rafaele Galeotto Sanzoni-
Riario Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio in Velii77i Aureum,
aet 1 6,) not sixteen years before, — his sacred person, because
he who suadente diabolo lifts hand against the person
of one tonsured ipso facto incurs the Greater Excommu-
nication, he risked his sacred person among a Floren-
tine mob, endeavouring to rouse them as of old to follow

126

The Roaring Blaze

Medici with the war-cry " Palle— Palle— Palle.''^ All was
in vain.

The well-worn cry had lost magnetic virtue ; and none
in Florence now dared to own himself a friend of Medici.
Don Piero rushed to the Porta di San Gallo, where Medici
had never cried in vain. None answered him. His courage
left him there. He infected with fear Don Paolo Orsini
and his bands ; and all fled to Bologna. At night Cardinal
Giovanni and his sixteen-year-old cousin, Messer Giuliano
Knight of St John of Jerusalem of Malta, escaped in the
frocks of Friars Minor ; and from Bologna these three
Medici journeyed on to Venice where Italian exiles always
found a home : while Florence sacked the Medici Palace,
plundered the priceless Medici Library of Manuscripts, and
set a price upon the head of Lorenzo's son Don Piero.

This revolt was the work of Fra Girolamo Savonarola.
For sixty years Florence had enjoyed prosperity under
Medici. She was the centre of learninor the mediatine
power of Italy with influence in every state; in fact, as the
Lord Boniface P.P. VIII said on receiving the Orators of
the Powers in Rome at the Jubilee of 1300, '' i fiorentini
sono il quinto elemento'' But the Dominican Friar had
roused in Her those moral aspirations which Medici had
lulled to atrophy ; and the contemptible blunders of Don
Piero had proved a final exasperation. The newly- formed
republic set up Donatello's statue of Judith with the Head
of Holofernes on a pedestal before Palazzo Vecchio, with
this inscription for the benefit of budding despots, Exem-
PLUM Salutis Publicae Gives Posuere MCCCCXCV.
And on the day of the expulsion of the Medici, little Pisa
revolted also, and threw off the yoke of Florence.

-Jr -tP ^

The fortune of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI appeared
to be in serious danger. The French unhindered were
advancing, and sedition was sown in Rome. One more
overture the Supreme Pontiff made, sending Cardinal
Raymond Perrauld, a creature of His Own, to treat with
the Christian King, who with no difficulty persuaded the

' Allusion to the five red balls and the lilied bezant in the Medici
armorials.

127

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

French Cardinal to turn traitor to the Pope. A Brief,
appealing to the Elect-Emperor Maximilian for help proved
ineffectual. The forces of Colonna beleaguered the Eternal
city. Within the walls, three disaffected cardinals, the
Lords Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, Friderico Sanseverini,
and Bernardino de' Lunati, were interned with the Pope in
the Mola for the sake of safety. When the pontifical citadel
of Civita Vecchia fell, the loyalists became yet more dis-
heartened. Orsini turned its coats and joined the French.
Cesarini alone of all the patricians of Rome continued to be
staunch and true. Resistance was useless, things being
as they were ; and the Lord Alexander P.P. VI gave leave
to the Christian King to enter Rome. He came. He
humanly was master of the City and of the situation, face
to face with the Holiness of the Pope, practically having
His person in his power. The Majesty of France demanded
the calling of a General Council ; and God's Vicegerent
opposed him with a blunt and unconditional Non Possitnius.
Whenever the World has driven the Church against the
wall, She has become inexorably invincible.

The year 1495 opened with Rome in panic and disorder,
in the clutch of a foreign army bringing desolation and a
new disease. The Christian King, who had come to accom-
plish the conquest of the Regno by means of the deposition
of the Pope, found the way completely blocked. He had
strutted on his twelve-toed feet to Rome, prepared to crow
so very gallically. The decree of deposition actually was
prepared, and only required confirmation by a competent
authority. Inflated with gigantic megalomaniacal illusions,
he had believed that an evil conscience would have made
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI obedient to him. He thought
by the threat of a General Council (which he intended to
convoke at Ferrara,) to blackmail the Pope into conceding
the investiture of Naples. He ineffectually had battered
the defences of the Pope with cannon. And now his
Frenchmen would fight no longer, as some say ; but others,
like Bri^onnet and de Commines, assert that it was the king
who blenched. At last, with his shallow mind congested
with half-thought thoughts and uncompleted facts like these,
he became aware that a General Council was not a General

128

The Roaring Blaze

council unless it had the Pope's authority, wliich last he
was not likely to obtain ; and that, without some means of
bending the pontifical will, he could not hope to win the
crown of Naples. Evidently, he could not depose the
Pope. He might, however, conquer Naples by force of
arms ; and, perhaps, the question of investiture by the Ruler
of the World, the Father of princes and of kings, the
Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour, which he realized
to be imperative, would wear a different aspect when he
should ask for it as a conqueror with the Regno in his
hand.

While the Christian King was stumbling to these con-
clusions, the invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI remained
with His little court in the Mola of Hadrian where He
had His hostages secure, viz., the Sultdn Djim, earnestly
desired by France as a weapon against the Great Turk,
and the renegade cardinals, friends of Colonna and the
French. Here, He was practically impregnable. The
Papal States might go to wrack and ruin : Rome Herself
might be crushed by an alien heel, but from the Mola of
Hadrian a Pope, surrounded by His faithful few, could,
and often did, defy blockade as long as provisions held
out ; could, and often did, launch the lightnings of the
Church, censures, excommunications, interdicts ; and force
acknowledgment, and reluctant obedience, from rebellious
sovereigns who, after all, believed and admitted Him to be
Ruler of the World, Father of princes and of kings,
Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour, titles, in defence
of which (so very glorious are they) Pontiffs of these clear
ages did not hesitate to court the death, admitting of no
compromise of no rebate. Our potency, said they, if worth
having, is worth fighting for, is worth dying for. And, as
invariably is the case, when a man shews that he wishes
nothing better than to lose his life for a cause, he saves
both cause, and life.

From the Mola of Hadrian then, the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI deigned to make these terms with the Christian
King : — The French army was to be withdrawn from
Rome. The Pope's Holiness would not interfere ; and
would lend to France as hostages for six months, the

129 I

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Sultdn Djim with whom to menace the Great Turk
Bajazet, and Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia). The question
of the investiture of Naples was not even named. Having
secured Himself by this agreement, in which He had con-
ceded neither of the two French claims, the Supreme
Pontiff received in formal audience the Christian King,
who shortly after marched his troops southward along the
Appian Way by Albano, Ariccia, and Genzano, toward the
Neapolitan frontier.

tP * tP

At the Third Consistory of the sixteenth of January
1495, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named one cardinal, who
was

the Lord Guillaume Bri9onnet, Overseer of the Treasury

to the Christian King Charles
VIH, editor of a book of
prayers dedicated to the said
king (Encheiridion precum) ;
Cardinal - Presbyter of the
Title of Santa Pudentiana.

At Velletri there lived a certain Don Pietro Gregorio
Borgia, son of that Don Niccolo Borgia of the Junior
Branch, Regent of Velletri and Familiar of King Don
Alonso V, by his marriage with the Noble Giovanna Lam-
berti. In 1495 this Don Pietrogorio was about the age of
twenty-one years (the age in fact of Cardinal Cesare;) and,
when the French king halted for the night at Velletri, he
found means to exchange habits- with the said Cardinal
Cesare (detto Borgia) and to help him to disappear,
remaining as hostage in his place. It was a daring act, and
soon discovered : but the cardinal was safe in Rome
concerting new schemes with the Pope. The Majesty of
France grave instant orders for the hanmnor of Don Pie-
trogorio and for the firing of the city ; and hurried on to
Naples. But the king's first secretary, who had been
commissioned to execute his master's vengeance, out of
sheer admiration for the courage of Velletri's Regent's son,
gave him a swift horse and leave to reclaim his own clothes

130

The Roaring Blaze

from Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) in Rome ; nor did he
give Velletri to the flames.

Immediately on hearing of the French approach, King
Don Alonso 1 1 abdicated in favour of his son Don
Ferrandino de Aragona. Envoys from the Catholick King
Don Hernando of Spain embarrassed the Christian King
Charles VIII of France with remonstrances on his invasion
of the territories of the House of Aragon : but the latter
was not to be rebuffed. The fortress of Monte San
Giovanni capitulated to him. His march through the
Regno was a series of victories ; and, in the capital, he
announced his intention altogether to relinquish the Crusade,
and to add Naples as a fief to France.

But three causes prevented this from becoming more
than a French boast : — the action of the Pope, the action of
the Powers, the action of Providence. Directly after the
French had quitted Rome, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
retired to the pontifical castle of Viterbo, a mighty fortress
in a cool air, and pleasant as a summer residence ; where
He was joined by Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) with Don
Pietro Gregorio Borgia (now the last Most Worshipful
Lord's lieutenant and standard-bearer) ; and whence He
commenced vigorous diplomatic negotiations directed
against the French.

The Powers of Italy had taken alarm. It had never
been contemplated that France would meet submission all
along the line, and actually become arbiter of the whole
country. Milan, Florence the Papal States, and now the
Regno, had fallen : with the French in France in the north,
and the French in Naples in the south, these intermediate
duchies, states and republics found themselves in the
position of an uncracked nut in a monkey's jaw : wherefore
Italy gave way to fear. Also, Spain was the enemy of
France, so was the Holy Roman Empire ; and the Elect-
Emperor Maximilian and the Catholic King realized the
arrival of a unique opportunity for invading France by
south and east, seeing that the French army was in Naples,
cut off from its base by the Italian states. All these cir-
cumstances and considerations, skilfully perceived and
engineered by the Pope's Holiness from His eyrie at

131

chronicles of the House of Borgia

Viterbo, quite naturally resulted in the conclusion of a Holy
League, consisting of the Papacy, the Empire, Spain, and
the Italian Powers, aorainst France.

His position having become untenable, the Christian
King resolved upon retreat. Half his army he left in
Naples ; and marched northward with the rest. His coming
had been a triumphal procession. His going was a flight
through hostile territory. A second time he entered Rome
with the hope of retrieving his lost prestige : but the Pope
again retired, this time to Orvieto, and refused to meet him.
Enraged by the slight, the polite chivalry of France to pain
the Pope avenged itself on women, pillaging the house of
Madonna Giovanna de' Catanei, and making Madonna
Giulia Orsini (nata Farnese) a prisoner. Onward, north-
ward, went the Christian King, conferring with the mattoid
P ra Girolamo Savonarola at Poo-o-ibonzi ; fio-htino- a
desperate battle at Fornuovo, where he lost his army stores ;
reaching France with his forces disgraced and in disorder ;
and he himself disabled by the sentence of the Greater
Excommunication which the thoroughly angry and
triumphant Pontiff fulminated after him.

J£. J/, .At.

•TT -Tr- 'A'

In Florence, Era Girolamo ceased not to labour on
behalf of the Christian King, sowing seeds of political dis-
cord, and preparing the germs of certain calumnies which,
in later years were used by Florentine friends of France.
His sermons were French manifestoes, and denunciations
of Medici. He had stepped from the pulpit of the j astor
to the platform of the politician. His power was admirable
and admired, his sincerity unquestionable ; and earnest
efforts were made to reclaim him from the doubtful practices
in which he was embarked. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI
summoned him by a kindly and paternal Brief to Rome ;
saying that He wished to hear him personally, and to confer
I with him as to the methods which he advocated. How
revoltingly inconsistent are the writers who rail against the
Pope for His treatment of this degenerate friar! Leaving
out of the question matters of dogma, articles of Faith,
in reference to which the Founder of Christianity definitely
promised to permit no error, it must be admitted that^

132

The Roaring Blaze

regarding ordinary affairs of government and discipline, a
Pope well advised is superior to a Pope ill advised. Well,
here is the Pope having heard many hard things of
Savonarola, definitely and gently offering to hear that
madman's own defence, definitely trying every means,
every most intimate and stringent means, to render Himself
well-advised before proceeding to judgment. If the sub-
sequent actions of the Lord Alexander P.P. VPdeserve to
be called ill advised, it is not He Who should be blamed,
but Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who with inconsequent
evasion, excused himself and continued his traitorous
machinations against the peace of his country, in de-
fiance of the law, and in contempt of the powers that be.
Order issued from Rome, inhibiting him from public
preaching, and placing his Convent of San Marco again
under the rule of the Lombard Congregation. Then, Fra
Girolamo professed ready obedience to the Pope ; but
begged for the independence of his convent, a prayer which
he supported with such arguments as to obtain a favouring
response, though the inhibition was repeated. Before the
formal Brief arrived Don Piero de Medici attempted to
return to Florence from Venetian exile ; being foiled solely
by a violent diatribe in which Fra Girolamo denounced him.
As time passed, the friar intrigued with Ferrara, gained
over and cultivated many influential Florentines ; and then
the Signoria took up his cause and formally appealed to
Rome for the removal of his inhibition.

•if- ^ ^

•Tf •Tf Tt»

The passage of the French through the Papal States,
like a blight of caterpillars, brought famine into the country
districts. In the Fifteenth Century, armies were not
encumbered by a commissariat. They robbed right and
left, living on the produce of the land in which they were,
paying for nothing, and invariably leaving utter desolation
and destitution in their rear. Distress and discontent
ravaged Rome. Winter storms brought Tiber down in
flood and the City was under water. So the year 1495
ended.

At the beginning of the new year, Don Virginio Orsini
joined the French in Naples, against the King Don

133

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Ferrandino II, the Pope and Venice. At Atellathe French
were defeated, and the Holy League grew powerful.
England joined it. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, who,
with His magnificent ability for doing many things, had
been superintending the decoration of the quire of Santa
Maria del Populo by the Flaminian Gate which opens on
the great north road, (the nearest gate to England), went,
with a solemn cavalcade, to hold a papal chapel for publish-
ing the Bull of Alliance with King Henry VII Tudor.
France had no friend save Florence, where the Signoria
had taken upon itself to remove the inhibition from Era
Girolamo Savonarola. That incontinent friar preached a
course of Lenten sermons defending himself, violently
denouncing Rome, particularizing certain vices which every-
where were general. His incorrigible attitude appears like
"the rage of a man who knows that he has chosen the
lower when he might have chosen the higher." He was in
open revolt, not against the Catholic Faith, but against the
laws of the land, and the Rule of the Religion of St Dominic
to which, voluntarily, under no compulsion whatever, he
had chosen to swear allegiance on the Sacrament of the
Lord's Body. To make things easy for him, the Pope's
Holiness proposed to erect a new Dominican Congregation
which he might be willing to obey, under Cardinal Carafa
who already had given evidence of his sympathy with the
friar. But Era Girolamo intractably refused to hear : and
it must be said that the minacity and violence, with which
he attacked his superiors, form a bitter contrast to the
patience and moderation which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
extended to him, in this — and let this be noted — the third
year of his disgraceful extravagance and disloyalty.

* ^ ^

At the Fourth Consistory of the twenty-first of January
1496, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named one cardinal,
who was

The Lord Philippe de Luxembourg ; Cardinal-Pres-
byter of the Title of San Marcellino e San Pietro.

* * *

The condition of the country improved as the year 1496
expanded. An ill-advised attempt of the Elect-Emperor

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Maximilian to revive the waning Imperial power by a pro-
gress through the Italian realms, was averted by the oppo-
sition of Venice and the remonstrances of the Sovereign
Pontiff. The Elect- Emperor having withdrawn into the
Tyrol, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was free to deal with the
Pontifical States. The Regno flourished under the young
King Don Ferrandino II, and the French occupation was
becoming a thing of the past. Only the rebellious vassals
of the Holy See remained ; and, of these, Colonna and
Savelli appear to have made their submission ; but the
Orsini were still in arms, and Malatesta, Riario, Manfredi,
and Sforza, were fortified at Cesena, Imola and Forli,
Faenza and Pesaro.

* # *

At the Fifth Consistory of the nineteenth of February
1496, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named four Spanish
cardinals, who were

(o) The Lord Don Bartolomeo Martino, Bishop of
Segovia ; Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of Sant'
Agfata m Suhtrra :
(j3) The Lord Don Juan de Castro, Prefect of Sant-
angelo, Bishop of Girgenti, [' AKpayapTtvog) in Sicily ;
Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of Santa Prisca :
(7) The Lord Don Juan Lopez, Canon of the Vatican
Basilica, Apostolic Datary ; Cardinal-Presbyter of
the Title of Santa Maria m Trastevere, tit. Callisto:
(^) The Lord Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore), a
Pontifical Nephew, Bishop of Melfi ; Cardinal-
Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria in Via Lata.

^ gp ^

Appointing His bastard, Don Juan Francisco de Lancol
y Borja, as Captain-General of the pontifical army, and
assisted by the Majesty of Naples, the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI proceeded to reduce Orsini. At the opening of
the campaign, Don Virgin io Orsini was captured by the
Neapolitans ; but when Orsini's stronghold of Bracciano
was relieved by Don Vitellozzo Vitelli of Citta di Castello,
the papal condottieri were forced to raise the siege. And
before the end of the year the Pope lost His ally King Don
Ferrandino II, who died at the age of twenty-eight "worn

13s

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

out with fatigue and with the pleasures of his marriage to
his aunt Joannawhom he loved too passionately." (Symonds,
Renascence, I. 513.) The year 1497 began with the
defeat of the papal troops by Orsini at the battle of Soviano,
a reverse which was counterbalanced by the success of
Don Gonsalvo de Cordova. This captain was at the head
of a band of mercenaries sent by Spain in aid of the
Papacy ; he took the fortress of Ostia from Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere, whose five years of treachery and
recalcitrancy were now punished by the Holiness of the
Pope, with deprivation of his benefices (which took from
him the " sinews of war ") and the deposition of his brother,
Don Giovanni della Rovere, from the Prefecture of Rome.
As for the French Orators who made protest at this
unaccountably long-delayed act of precautionary justice, —
unaccountably-long-delayed, except on the hypothesis of
this Pope's singular patience, long-suffering, and dislike
of proceeding to extremities, — the Supreme Pontiff con-
temptuously remarked that they were come from an Excom-
municated King ; and that it was well for them that Cardinal
Cesare (detto Borgia) did not hear them. This, by the bye,
is the first instance of the amazing influence which that
young Porporato was beginning to attain, an influence
which within the next few years increased by leaps and
bounds until the name of Cesare (detto Borgia) stood
among the most important names in Europe.

Further to emphasize the slight to France by shewing
His appreciation of Spain's support, the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI decorated His bastard, Don Juan Francisco de
Langol y Borja Duke of Gandia and Prince of Teano and
Tricarico, as representing the Spanish branch of His House,
with the titles of Count of Chiaramonte, Lauria, and
Cerignuola, Tyrant of Benevento and Tarracina, and
Grand Constable of Naples.

# * ^ ■

In honour of her son's good fortune. Madonna Giovanna
de' Catanei gave a supper at her villa by San Pietro ad
Vincula, where were present the young Duke of Gandia
of the age of twenty-two years, and Cardinal Cesare (detto
Borgia) his senior by a year. Their sister Madonna

136

The Roaring Blaze

Lucrezia, who had had much unpleasantness with her hus-
band, Don Giovanni Sforza the Tyrant of Pesaro, had left
him ; and was living in the Convent of San Sisto in Rome,
as noble ladies do who wish to guard their reputations in
delicate circumstances.

When supper was over, and the night advancing, the
Cardinal advised Don Juan that it was time to return to
the Vatican where they lodged. In view of the popular
delusions concerning this occurrence, it may be advisable to
refer to the fact that sunset was taken to end a twenty-four
hours day ; that " one hour of the night," i.e., one hour after
sunset, was the fashionable supper-time, which at this time
of the year (the fourteenth of June) would be about 9 p.m.
Before midnight then, at a generous computation, the
Cardinal and the Duke of Gandia mounted their horses and
rode through Rome together as far as the palace of the
Vicechancellor attended by a small escort. It is worth
noting that the palace of the Vicechancellor was not the
Cancelleria, the palace of the Chancery at San Lorenzo tn
Da77zaso, perhaps the most beautiful palace in the world,
which Messer Bramante Lazzari built for the white-faced
Cardinal Rafaele Galeotto Sanzoni-Riario : but the new
palace built by Cardinal Rodrigo de Lan9ol y Borja, and
given by him after His election to the Supreme Pontificate,
to the Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-
Visconti ; (now Palazzo Sforza-Cesarini on Banchi Vecchi).

There, the ardent Duke (he already was married t) a
princess of Spain, and the father of two children,) said to
the Cardinal that, before going home, he wanted to amuse
himself somewhere ; and, taking leave of the said Most
Worshipful Lord, and dismissing his suite with the excep-
tion of a certain bully whom he kept, he took on his crupper
an unknown man in a mask who waited there, and who
daily during a month had come to see him at the Vatican,
as well as on this very night during the supper in the garden
of his mother. Then he turned his horse in the direction
of the Jews' Quarter, (there was no Ghetto till 1556), and
disappeared in the twilight of a midsummer night. He
never again was seen alive.

When the City awoke in the morning, (Romans alwajs

137

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

were early risers,) the Duke of Gandia's bully was found
on Piazza Giudei, wounded by the steel of an assassin ; and
all efforts to obtain information from him proved futile. He
died without having spoken.

The news trickled into the Vatican, and was mentioned
to the Pope ; who thought that perhaps Don Juan was
staying with some courtesan, wishing out of consideration
for iiis Father to avoid the scandal of being seen to issue
from such a house in open day. But when night came
again, and the Duke did not appear, the Pope's Holiness
took alarm ; and ordered an inquisition and the usual
dragging of Tiber. The wags of Rome instantly said that,
notwithstanding all that Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere had
alleged concerning the election of the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI as being simoniacal, it was now certain that He
was a true Successor of St. Peter as a Fisher of men.

Among other bearers of news, there came to the in-
quisitors a certain Giorgio, of the Schiavoni, a waterman,
asserting that, while guarding his boat on Tiber during the
night, he had seen two men, who came to the shore to look
whether any one was there ; behind them came two others
making the same inspection. He, the speaker, being in the
shadow of his beached boat escaped all notice. When
these four had assured themselves that the place was empty,
there came one on a white horse, conveying behind him a
dead man, whose feet and arms hung down, held by two
foot-men. Having come to the water's edge, they turned
the crupper of the horse to the river ; and, lifting the corpse,
swung it into the stream. The rider looked on : but seeing
a dark object which floated, — it was the dead man's
cloak, — he ordered the others to throw stones at it until it
sank.

After hearing this tale, the Pope groaned, and re-
proached the waterman in that he did not give immediate
notice to the bargelli (police) of the crime which he had
witnessed. The man impudently answered that he had
seen such siofhts a thousand times : but never had he known
of any one who cared to hear about them.

The Vicechancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-
Visconti wrote to his brother the Duke of Milan, relating

138

The Roaring Blaze

the deposiLion of Giorgio the waterman, and the disquietude
of the Pope.

Later, the corpse was found in Tiber, completely
clothed in the sumptuous garments of the Duke of Gandia,
tiie dagger in its sheath, the pouch intact adorned with
jewels of great value. Eleven — some say fourteen —
wounds, of which an enormous one was in the throat, were
the cause of death. The unfortunate young Duke was
buried at Santa Maria del Popolo. [Maricont.) That,
actually, is all that is known of the murder of the Duke of
Gandia,

The only person, except the murderer or murderers,
who could give any salient information, was the bully ; and
he expired without uttering a word The mystery of the
unknown man in a mask has never been solved (nor the
archives of a Roman patrician House published) ; and, for
a time, the matter rested there.

% ^ -tF

The effect upon the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was
terrible. He had loved Don Juan Francisco with a very
great love. Notwithstanding the fact that Cardinal Cesare
(detto Borgia) was a year older than the Duke of Gandia,
the Pope had always treated the latter as His heir^ ; and
had foreseen in his vigorous manlihood the foundation of a
dynasty of Grandees of Spain who would render more
illustrious the House of Borja. The founding of a family
has always been an object very near to the hearts of great
men.

And now the irruption of hideous and ruthless Death
turned the Pope's Holiness, f(^r a moment, from a spiritual
and temporal sovereign and despot into a very human man.
At such a moment, when man most poignantly is reminded
of the Inevitable Universal waiting in the background, he
feels his utter helplessness, his entire unworthiness, and
would appease, make satisfaction. Broken-hearted, the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI spoke of abdication, and a change
of life ; as other famous men have done, whom trouble, or
fear, have driven to La Trappe. He made good resolu-

' A most important inference may be drawn from this, as to the paternity
of Cardinal Cesare.

159

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

tions. He gave munificent gifts to churches ; for His
revived piety manifested itself in practical form. He
appointed a Commission < f six cardinals, including
Cardinals Carafa and Costa, to reform ecclesiastical abuses.
He named Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) as Apostolic
Legate for the pacification of Umbria. By way of restoring
unity to Italy, He endeavoured to persuade Florence to
annul her ;illiance with excommunicate France : in which
admirable intent He was thwarted solely by the indescrib-
able efforts of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who, during the
Lent of this year, had preached in favour of unswerving
subservience to the Christian King. The Powers of
Europe, especially England, the Holy Roman Empire,
Venice, Naples, and Spain, who formed the Holy League
with the Papacy, on receiving official intimation of the
Pope's bereavement and His bitter sorrow, sent Orators
with suitable expressions of condolence.

During summer and autumn, which should have been
occupied in drafting the Bull of Reform (a task subsequently
performed by the Council of Trent,) the Reform Commis-
sion had to study, and deal with, and advise the Pontiff in,
the more urgent case of the friar of Florence Riots and
affrays between the partisans and opponents of Fra Girolamo
Savonarola disgraced the Lily- City of Tuscany : and, at
last, after more than four years forbearance, all gentler
measures having failed, he was placed under sentence of
excommunication.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) proceeded
to Naples as Apostolic Ablegate for the coronation of King
Don Federigo de Aragona. (The Sword of State which
was borne before His Worship on this occasion is in posses-
sion of Caietani Duke of Sermoneta : but the scabbard of
embossed leather is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.)

:^ * *

In September 1497 the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
published the creation of one cardinal, whose name, for
political reasons, He had reserved in petlo smat the Second
Consistory of September 1493, who was

The Lord Don Luis de Aragona, son of King Don
F'errando I ; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of
140

The Roaring Blaze

Santa Maria in Cosmediv. (He was commonly
called " The Cardinal of Aragon.")

.JA, .Ji. Jt.

^ -TV- ■TV'

At the incoming of winter arrived an opportunity for the
enemies of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to blaspheme.

Madonna Lucrezia Borgia was living in the Convent of
San Sisto, separated from her husband, Don Giovanni
Sforza the Tyrant of Pesaro ; and seeking a decree of
nullity of marriage, alleging a canonical impediment. This
young man was cousin to the Duke of Milan, very hand-
some in person, and intelligent. He already had been
married to Madonna Maddalena Gonzaga, who in 1490 had
died di cattivo parto (Gregorovius). In 1493, being then
in his twenty-sixth year, he had married Madonna Lucrezia,
from whose Father he held his Tyranny of Pesaro by way
of fief, consolidating the alliance of Sforza and Borgia. He

had most of the advantages of life, illustrious birth, rank,

. . . . . •

youth, health, a splendid position, intimate relationship with

his feudal lord, and a wife acknowledged by all contem-
poraries as the most beautiful woman of her time : and now,
after little more than three years, he was to be held up to
the derision of all by the annulment of his marriage on the

score of d^rimfXLa.

Nothing, at any time is more certain to enrage a man
than this ; and, in the Fifteenth Century, the Century of the
Discovery of Man, when avEpua was prized and wor-
shipped, a charge which made him look ridiculous in the
estimation of his species, which struck at the very root of
his manlihood, was sure to be furiously resented. When
his wife left him to enter her petition, Don Giovanni Sforza
sped to Milan invoking the support of his kin, the Vice-
chancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti and the
Duke Ludovico Maria (detto II Moro). On news reaching
them to the effect that evidence had been given before the
legal tribunal in Rome, which proved the marriage to lack
consummation and Madonna Lucrezia to be irapQ^vog aS^j/rrj,
he violently protested, and with unrestrained rancour. Don
Beltrando Costabili, the Orator of Ferrara, writing from
Milan to his government, asserted that Don Giovanni said
to Duke Ludovico Maria, " Anzi haverla conosciuta infinite

141

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

volte, ma chel Papa non gliela tolta per altro se non per
usare con lei." It is most improbable that a reigning
sovereign would admit a foreign ambassador to a discussion
of his family affairs ; and unless Costabili actually heard
those words, they can only be accepted as a piece of gossip
reported, not as legal evidence. Duke Ludovico Maria
ingenuously proposed to Don Giovanni an ordeal which, in
that naive age, was usual in similar cases, of submitting
formally and publicly to the judgment of a jury of men of
bonafides and the papal legate : and, on his refusal, his own
relations, the Duke and the thin-faced clear-witted Vice-
chancellor-Cardinal, obtained from him a written confession
that Madonna Lucrezia was justified in her petition, and
advised him to let the law take its course. The case of a
man temporarily aEvmrog at the age of Don Giovanni
physiologically is no uncommon one. Much has been
made of the circumstances under which his first wife died,
and of the fact that his third, Madonna Ginevra de' Tiepoli,
bore him a son, Don Costanzo Sforza, eight years later
(1505). As for the infernal calumny against the Pope's
Holiness, Don Giovanni Sforza was its inventor, says the
Orator of Ferrara, and the mortifying humiliation of a
libidinous laughing-stock its proximate occasion. On the
twentieth of December 1497, the decree of nullity of the
marriage was published in Rome, the Tyrant of Pesaro
refunded the lady's dowry of thirty thousand ducats ; and
Madonna Lucrezia Borgia was free.

* * *

The cause of the visit to Milan of the Vicechancellor-
Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti, at this time, was
that he had come under most undeserved suspicion of having
been connected with the murder of the Duke of Gandia.
Bitter as it must have been to the Pope's Holiness to
suspect his oldest friend, at least the latter's recent treachery
with Colonna made estrangement unavoidable. The Vice-
chancellor retired to Gennazano by Praeneste, (Palestrina),
a fief of Colonna, ostensibly to worship Madonna of Good
Counsel. An investigation of his Roman palace during his
absence was without fruit ; and, angered at the suspicion,
he had retired to Milan, where his unprejudiced and straight-

142

The Roaring Blaze

forward action in the matter of the nulhty, at a time when
he naturally went in disgust of Borgia, should go a lono-
way in favour, not only of his own bonafides, but also of
that of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.

# * #

M Savonarola's attitude toward the sentence of excom-
munication that had been launched against him, was

3 incorrigible. His influence caused the Signoria of Florence
unsuccessfully to appeal to the Pope's Holiness for the
withdrawal of the Brief; and the friar accompanied this
appeal with an open defiance. On Christmas Day he sang

' the three high masses at San Marco, and announced the

; resumption of his frenzied discourses. The physiognomy
of this mattoid is the key to the secret of his misbehaviour.
He was cast in the mould of the animal-man. He had the
long head with immense hinder development, the great
thick nose, the enormous lower lip, coarse mouth, and heavy
jowl, of a ram. Above all, in him the little lateral muscles
of the nose-root were of opulent growth, a sign which is
unmistakable. But, contrariwise, the narrow temples with
their overhanging brows pointed in the middle, struck the
note of ideality, and conquered the animalism of the man.
It was this cataclysmal violence of difference, this trenchant

J, contrast, that made him what he was. In him there were two
i inimical characters, the character of the saint, the character

',of the ram. That of the saint vanquished that of the ram :
but the poignant struggle overthrew the mental balance of the

I saint. His proper place was not the Convent of San Marco
in Florence : but the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Rome.^
So in sorrow, in anger, in horrid uncertainty, the year
1497 ended.

■T^ ^ ^

After the coronation of Don Federigo de Aragona as
King of Naples, Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) announced
a determination which he had nourished since the murder
of the Duke of Gandia. Whether he was the Pope's
bastard or another's, it was his pose to aggrandise the
House of Borgia ; moreover he was young, only twenty-
four years of age, and of an ardent and forceful habit of

1 The Roman phrase " to go to Santo Spirito " means " to go mad."

143

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

mind and body. Don Gioffredo Borgia was occupied with
his wife Madonna Sancia de Aragona and his principaHty of
Squillace ; and his age of seventeen years did not render
him a capable representative of his illustrious House.
Cardinal Cesare felt that his scarlet hat debarred him from
the pursuits for which Nature had devised him. The foes
of Borgia were active on all sides : the territories of the
Holy See were a hot-bed of revolt. Sforza sulked in
Milan ; Orsini, never forgetful of injury, entrenched them-
selves in their strongholds ; their fierce brigands ravaged
the country far and wide : and there was no Borgia to hold
them in check. Wherefore Cardinal Cesare requested
leave to renounce his cardinalate, to receive secular rank, to
marry a royal princess, that he might be free to adopt a
military career, and to perpetuate the Borgia dynasty.
It was an extraordinary plan : but, though it presented
advantages of high political value, it was opposed and
shelved by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, whose behaviour
to Cardinal Cesare was never that of a father, but of a
patron and benefactor who patronized, and benefited, him
for the sake of another than himself. Yet, though the
attitude of the Pope to the Cardinal was one of lifelong
distinct antipathy, He set immense value on his advance-
ment, and incurred peril and made sacrifices to promote it.
What was the motive of conduct which presents such con-
tradictory features? Is it possible that Cardinal Cesare
was the son of Madonna Giovanna de' Catanei, not by
Cardinal Rodrigo de Lan^ol y Borja, but by the eternal
rival of the last, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere ? It is
extremely possible and extremely probable. Cardinal
Rodrigo undoubtedly had loved Madonna Giovanna very
o-reatly since 1474. She undoubtedly was the mother of
Cardinal Cesare, who was born in 1474. She had had
relations with Cardinal Giuliano before that. And Cardinal
Rodrigo never acknowledged the paternity of Cardinal
Cesare, although he never denied it. The theory, which
lacks not some proof (to be given in a proper place), would
explain the unconquerable malice of Cardinal Giuliano della
Rovere towards the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Who had
deprived him of his mistress as well as of the triregno, the

144

The Roaring Blaze

object of his ultimate ambition ; and the loathing of the
Pope's Holiness for His enemy's bastard, whom He, at the
same time held as a hostage to be used against Cardinal
Giuliano in an extremity, feared for his incorrigible and
antipathetic disposition, and advanced and enriched for the
love which He had borne to his mother. That is the only
rational explanation of certain mysteries which, otherwise,
remain inexplicable.

The proposal of Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) had
many recommendations. The lax and feeble government
of the late Pope, the Lord Innocent P.P. VIH, had played
havoc with order in the vast domain of Umbria, of the
Mark of Ancona, of the Romagna, that splendid realm in
north-eastern Italy verging on the Adriatic Sea. A few
strong men, tyrants of petty fiefs, threw off allegiance to the
Pope as their Over-Lord. Don Oliverotto da Fermo, a
brigand of the worst kind, made himself Tyrant of Fermo
by the simple process of assassinating his uncle, Don
Giovanni Fogliani, and all the chief citizens, at a banquet.
Don Vitellozzo Vitelli garrisoned Citta di Castello, Don
Paolo Orsini was fortified at Sinigaglia, Madonna Caterina
Sforza-Riario at Imola and Forli, the Oddi and Baglioni
at Perugia, the Manfredi at Faenza, the Varani at Camerino,
the Bentivogli at Bologna. Safe in their strongholds these
Tyrants paid no dues, no feudal tribute to their Lord Para-
mount. From time to time they sallied forth with armed
condottieri to replenish their stores from the pillage of
towns and villages. The province was ravaged from end
to end by their excesses. In the Library of San Marco at
Venice may be read letters (Lat, CI. x. 176) which report on
the condition of Umbria when the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
began His reign ; a condition of horror unspeakable, which
He was determined to abolish.

To this end. He had sent Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia)
as Apostolic Legate into Umbria, in the summer of 1497,
just a month after the murder of the Duke of Gandia. The
Legate went unarmed save by his sacred office, and with
too small an escort for offence. The idea was to test the
moral authority of the Suzerain of Umbria, the Roman
Pontiff, in a place where the civil power practically was

145 ^^

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

helpless, and where a man's life depended only on the fear
which he inspired.

On the day of his arrival at Narni, the sixteenth of July
1497, Cardinal Cesare already had formed an opinion which
he communicated to the Pope's Holiness in these words :
"It is very necessary to provide me with an army against
" these kakodaimones ; for they go not out by holy-water."^

The brigand Don Bartolomeo d'Alviano seized a town
belonging to the Pope in despite of the Legate, and sacked
it before his face. Cardinal Cesare summoned him to keep
the peace : he refused ; and matters went from bad to
worse.

" They offend as they did at first, and will not hearken
" unto my commandments " ; ^
he wrote to the Pope eleven days later.

The inhabitants of Todi fled from their town to save
their lives. Brigandage was in its hey-day. " Your
" Holiness can well understand that the only remedy for
" these evils lies in the coming of men of arms, whose
" delay has caused Todi to be desolated and the city, from
" my departure till now, totally derelict and left empty." ^
At Perugia, the Legate took the bull by the horns in a
singularly daring manner and with singular success; putting
the more uproarious of the ringleaders under the ban of
expulsion, "which thing was done with such obedience and
"calm that nothino^ better could be desired."*

But he did better than that. He cauofht a murderer in

flagrante delicto. "I captured two robbers and murderers;

"and with no tumult, but to the delight of the people, they

'were put in gaol^a thing long unknown in this city—

"and this morninof I handed one."^

^ " E molto necessaria la provisione de le genti d' arme contro quest!
demonii che non fugono per acqua santa." xvi. ful. 1497.

2 " Commensano nel primo modo offenderse et non dare loco ad mei
commandamenti." xxvii. ful. 1497.

^ " La S'' V'' po ben comprendere che tucto lo remedio di quest! male !n la
venuta de la gente d' arme, le qual! tardando piu fornlscere el paese de Tod!
da desolare, essendo da la partita miu la cita totalmente derellcta et lassata
vacua." XXX. ful. 1497.

* " Procedono le cose qu! con tanta obedlentia et quleta che meglio non s!
potriano desiderare." xxx. ful. 1497.

^ " Du becharin! homicid! ho fact! plglia, et son stat! senza tumulto et

146

The Roaring Blaze

'Twas immense. There was no tumult, and the people
were pleased. That a murderer should pay a penalty for
his crime was a charming and fantastic novelty to Perugia.
The strong arm of the law struck the city with consterna-
tion, and deeds of violence ceased as though by magic. In
this manner Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) gave a taste of
his quality ; and came before the world, for the first time,
in the role which Nature intended him to fill, with his
splendid personality, and swift unerring pitiless masterful-
ness of action.

The prosecution of this work was prevented by the con-
dition of affairs in Rome. It was impossible for the Holi-
ness of the Pope to gather an army while the marriage of
Madonna Lucrezia was before the courts, and the frenzy of
Fra Girolamo Savonarola before the Reform Commission.
Cardinal Cesare, also, was required for other service.

But now, at the beginning of 1498, after the coronation
of King Don Federigo, at the close of his legation to
Naples, Cardinal Cesare reverted to the work begun the
year before ; and preferred his petition for leave to doff
the scarlet of an ecclesiastic, and to embark on a secular
career. The news was bruited about Rome on the eighth
of February. Four days later, on the twelfth, the Ferrarese
Orator at Venice heard it said that Cardinal Cesare was
the murderer of the Duke of Gandia, and that His Worship
and Madonna Lucrezia Borgia were seeking matrimonial
alliances with the Royal House of Naples. Four days
would be exceedingly quick travelling for a piece of gossip
from Rome to Venice, when news was carried by mounted
couriers, or a-foot, and would have to pass through the
Romagna hell : and it is also most important to note that
this suspicion was not published till eight months after the
murder; and, then, in Venice. No evidence was offered
to support it. It emanated from the numerous Orsini whom
Venice sheltered, and who said that Cardinal Cesare had
killed the Duke in order that he might take his place as
the Pope's soldier-son. Once started, the accusation was
repeated by Cappello the twenty-eighth of September 1 500 ;

piacer del populo menati in presione — cosa da bon tempo in qua insolita in
questa cita, et questi matina ne ^ stato appichiato uno." II Aug. 1497.

147

chronicles of the House of Borgia

and by Don Silvio Savelli in November 1501 ; three and
four years after the event : nor does it lack repetition by
cheap and showy panderers to a guileless public fond of
having its flesh made to creep at the present day. All that
is known of the murder already has been set down here.
But one vital consideration remains to be stated, one new
point of view to be described ; and it is due to the rumour
of Orsini invention mentioned above.

According: to Monsionor Hans Burchard the Caerimo-
narius, Cardinal Cesare and the Duke of Gandia parted, on
the night of the fourteenth of June 1497, by the Vice-
chancellor's palace (Palazzo Sforza-Cesarini) on Banchi
Vecchi ; whence the latter, saying that he was going to
amuse himself, etc., went in the direction of the Jews'
Quarter with his two attendants, the bully, and the un-
known mask who undeniably had come by appointment.

Rome of 1497 was divided for purposes of government
into fourteen Regions (Rioni) ruled by captains (caporioni)
under a prior. The Vicechancellor's palace on Banchi
Vecchi is in the Region called Ponte, which extends from
the church of San Giovanni de' Fiorentini to the Region
called Santangelo after the church of that dedication in the
Fishmarket (Pescheria). Now this Region of Ponte was
inhabited chiefly by the Orsini faction ; as the region of
Trevi and the Region of Ripa were inhabited by the
Colonna and Savelli factions respectively. In this Region
of Ponte lived also Jews : it was the quarter of the bankers
and the money-changers, as well as of the prisons, public
and private torture-chambers, (no evidence was taken from
commoners except under torture,) all under the official pro-
tection of the House of Orsini. Here is Cord Lane
(Vicolo della Corda), where the ordinary Question or
Torture of the Cord^ was applied. Here is Old Pillory

^ This was quite a common torture. Every patrician had the right to
inflict it on his plebeians ; and every inventory of palaces begins with " Ropes
for the Cord." In many palaces and castles, iron rings through which the
Cord was passed remain to be seen. The witness had his hands tied, hanging
loosely behind him. One end of the long Cord was attached to his wrists ;
the other end was flung over a beam or through a ring and held by the
official torturer. Then the witness delicately was drawn up as high as
possible. He hung there by his wrists which were strained backward and
upward, with his shoulders generally dislocated. Then, with a frightful jerk

The Roaring Blaze

Square, (Piazza della Berlena Vecchla.) Here is Execu-
tioner Lane, (Vicolo dello Mastro.) And here were four
Orsini fortresses, Monte Giordano, Tor Millina, Tor
Sanguigna, and Torre di Nona. The Region of Santan-
gelo, also, almost exclusively was inhabited by Jews under
the protection of Orsini who held yet another palace-fortress
here in the Theatre of Marcellus, (formerly the stronghold of
the great mediaeval Jewish House of Pierleoni,) near by
the site on which the Ghetto was built in 1556 under the
Lord Paul P.P. IV, and abolished in 1890 under the Lord
Leo P.P. XIH.

These topographical facts appear to point in one
direction. A conclusion may be reached by the following
degrees.

(o) The Duke of Gandia took eleven (or fourteen)

wounds.
f/3) His pouch with its precious jewels was intact.
(7) He had parted from Cardinal Cesare before

witnesses in Banchi Vecchi.
(S) He said that he was going to amuse himself
(e) He went towards the Jews' Quarter.
(t) Cardinal Cesare returned to the Vatican,
(rj) Banchi Vecchi is in Ponte, the Region of Jews and

of Orsini.
(B) The Jews' Quarter stricte dide was in Santangelo, a

Region also dominated by Orsini.
(t) The Orsini were in mortal strife with the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI, Who had visited them with
appalling disaster. Who was likely to cause them
infinite loss of life and spoil in the near future,

he was dropped to within a braccia (2 feet 7 inches) of the floor, completing
the dislocation with a shock. At this moment, the Question was put ; his
answer distinguished from his shrieks, and written down. Any stubbornness,
or insolence, or reticence, was met by attaching weights to his feet, and
subjecting him to fresh elevations and fresh drops, till his arms were torn
from the sockets and his sinews strained to the uttermost. Or, as a variant,
he was left to hang until his questioner had obtained the information
required. Evidence of commoners, without the Question, appears to have
been considered by the Fifteenth Century as valueless as evidence unsupported
by oath or affidavit and untested by cross-examination at the present day.
The nearest modern equivalent to the Torture of the Cord would be the
smelling of a greasy testament plus the stratagems of a cross-examining
counsel. It was merely a legal form.

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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Whose favourite son, heir, and militaiy right hand,
was the Duke of Gandia.

(k) It was Orsini who started the rumour, eight months
later, that Cardinal Cesare (of whom Orsini went
in horrid fear by reason of his exploits in the
Romagna) had murdered the Duke of Gandia.

The human and natural conclusion would seem to be
that Don Juan Francisco de Lan9ol y Borja, Duke of
Gandia, Prince of Teano and of Tricarico, Count of
Chiaramonte of Lauria of Cerignuola, Tyrant of Benevento
of Tarracina, Grand Constable of Naples, and Captain-
General of the pontifical army against Orsini, living apart
from his wife Doiia Maria de Aragona who was with his
two children at his duchy in Spain, being a handsome
pleasure-loving youth of twenty two years, went to keep an
assignation on that night of the fourteenth of June 1497 ;
and fell by the furious dagger of one of Orsini's Jews, a
rival ? a father ? an outraged husband ? — or by the vengeful
poignards of his own and his Father's deadly foes, the
Orsini,

The great number of his wounds, the safety of his
valuables, may be thus accounted for. The unknown
mask would be the decoy, disguised as pandar. The
murder of the bully speaks of more assassins than one.

Then, did not Orsini strike at the heart of the Pope in
the slaughter of His eldest son ?

At all events, no formal accusation of the guilt of this
most foul and treacherous crime has ever been laid against
Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia.) There is absolutely no
evidence against him — only suspicion rumour and conjec-
ture. And the three spring from a tainted source — the lair
of the Bear — Orsini.

-??* -yp ^

Plans for the settlement of the Romagna had to be set
aside. The affair of Fra Girolamo Savonarola monopolized
the attention of the moment.

That friar began the year 1498 by preaching a fierce
defence of his disobedience to the inhibition and to the
sentence of excommunication ; and by a frenetic onslaught
on the Roman as distinguished from the Tuscan clergy.

150

The Roaring Blaze

The Lord Alexander P. P. VI, the acknowledged Head of the
Christian Church, (indeed He was the only representative
of Christianity in Authority at that time) found Himself in
the position of a commander-in-chief dealing with a
mutinous mad sergeant whom captains, colonels, and
generals have failed to reduce to order. The Pope's
moderation and long-suffering, prior to his allowing the
law to take its course, are perfectly marvellous. Fra
Girolamo had been in a state of mutiny for more than four
years. Preaching the duty of obedience, he would not
practise it. He was totally insensible to the many graces
with which he had been indulged ; and he met all overtures
for peace with evasion or with insolence. After all, he was
"a man under authority," under authority to which volun-
tarily he had vowed, and refused, submission while
admitting the right of that authority to claim it : — an
anomalous position, illogical, scandalous, — the position of a
mad man. To the Signoria of Florence, then, the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI issued a Brief commanding the with-
drawal of support from the excommunicated friar ; threat-
ening Florence with an Interdict (a hideous lash that
invariably brought curs to heel) if His commandment were
disobeyed : but, at the same time, offering to absolve the
rebellious son of St. Dominic, upon submission. The
Signoria replied, defending Savonarola ; and the Pope's
Holiness replied that, either he must be imprisoned, or be
sent to Rome : a decision which was explained at greater
length to the Signoria by the Florentine Orator in Rome,
who also described the Pope's natural feelings of embitter-
ment at finding His reasonable demands so spurned and
set aside. Half measures only were taken. The Lord
Alexander P.P. VI justly was dissatisfied when the Signoria
simply forbade the friar to preach. His Holiness com-
manded, then, the entire vindication of His supreme authority.
Here, Fra Girolamo Savonarola committed his final sin.
He joined in the stale howl appealing to the Powers of
Europe for the convocation of a General Council ; and he
redoubled his treacherous intrioues with the Christian Kinof
Charles VIII : completing the exasperation of the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI.

151

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Events moved swiftly then. Defying the commands of
his acknowledged superior, the Pope, as well as the injunc-
tions of the Signoria, he fell on disrepute. His influence
in Florence waned and withered ; his prophecies fell thick
and fast on no believers : and then the Signoria insisted on
his submission to the Pope.

He replied by demanding the Ordeal Of Fire ; offering
to walk through a blazing furnace with one of the many
who opposed him, the person who should take no hurt from
that Ordeal to be adjudged innocent and under the special
protection of God.

Fra Francesco of Apulia a Friar Minor (a Religion
always bitterly antipathetic to the Religion of St. Dominic)
accepted ttie challenge thus thrown down. He said that
he knew that both parties to the Ordeal would be burned
to death : but it would be better so, than that one heresiarch
should be left free to carry on his treasons to Christ's Church
and State.

Again Fra Girolamo Savonarola put forth an evasion.
He refused, after challenging — he refused the Ordeal in his
proper person : but he offered one of his friars of San
Marco, one Fra Domenico, as his representative.

From Rome the practical common sense of the Pope's
Holiness fulminated disapproval : but the Ordeal went on.
Faggots were piled in the great square of Florence, and set
in flame. The skin of the faces of the crowd grew hot and
scarlet and crackled in the glare. The Friar Minor came
forward in readiness to die for the good of the people. Fra
Girolamo made delays — delays — he said that Fra Domenico
must bear our Lord-in-the-Sacrament, the Sacred Host,
Gesu Sagramentato, in an ostensorium through the raging
flames. The pious simple souls of the Signoria knew this
for irreverence, for sacrilege ; retired to discuss the point ;
returned ; refused permission. Fra Girolamo persisted
while the fire burned lower. The long slow day was
passing. Already his dictatorship, the day when he ruled
Florence with a word, had passed. The fire was dying :
and then, finally, except upon his own mad terms, Fra
Girolamo refused the Ordeal which he had challenged,
evaded, delayed, denied.

15?

-^^'t^z- c:Uyt£>^a/?7^...cy t^^^^g/ZAt?-^^

The Roaring Blaze

All faith in him was gone. Objurgated by a thousand i
raucous throats, torn at by a thousand furious hands, the
people's broken idol sought refuge in his Convent of San
Marco. Florence rose in riot, blood was shed, the blood
of Francesco Valori in cold murder. The Convent of San
Marco suffered storm ; and the friars with their mattoid
Prior were cast in prison.

In the interests of justice and of mercy, the Pope's
Holiness strove to have their trial held in Rome : but events
had roused the Signoria to vindicate the honour of Florence
"to satisfy the people who so long had been duped and
trained in sacrilege and rebellion." Wherefore, from Rome
came Commissioners for the trial of Fra Girolamo Savona- >
rola and his accomplices. Put to the legal torture, he
confessed himself charlatan and criminal. He and his
lieutenants, Frati Domenico and Silvestro, were found
guilty as heretics, schismatics, and rebels against the Holy
See, of political fanaticism amounting to high treason and
mutiny against his lawful rulers. Handed to the secular
judges for sentence, he was condemned, with the two friars,
to death by hanging and the burning of their bodies after
death. Handed back to the ecclesiastical power the three
were degraded from their priesthood, to enable them to
undergo the death penalty, avoiding the sacrilege of
violence to the persons of those tonsured and anointed. At
the very last, by the express commandment of the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI there was offered to the condemned a
Plenary Indulgence-in-the-article-of-death, with release from
all Canonical Censures and Excommunications. Gratefully,
thankfully, it was accepted ; and the prisoners paid the
legal retribution of their crimes.

Had he been an Englishman of the Twentieth Century,
instead of a Florentine of the Fifteenth, Fra Girolamo
Savonarola would not have been hanored or burned : but
censured ; suspended, from the exercise of sacerdotal func-
tions, by ecclesiastical authority ; and, at last, by medical
authority, interned at Broadmoor during the Pleasure of
the King's Majesty, as a criminal lunatic.

* :^ *

This year 1498, was born Don Giovanni Borgia, called

153

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

" Infans Romanus " ; who was said to be a bastard of
Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) by "a Roman spinster."

This year also, died the twelve-toed chin-tufted excom-
municated little Christian King Charles VIII of France ;
and was succeeded by his cousin Louis XII, a thin man
with a fat neck and lip, and an Ethiopic nose, and exquisite
attire, who immediately made two startling claims — for the
nullification of his marriage with Madame Jeanne de Valois,
and for the confirmation of his claim to the Duchy of Milan.
The Lord Alexander P.P. VI always preferred friends to
enemies ; and, now that Charles VIII was gone to his own
place, He gladly welcomed an opportunity of winning the
allegiance of France. A commission of jurists went from
Rome, who, on the legal facts, declared the marriage
between the King and Madame Jeanne to be null and void.
A papal dispensation legalized the marriage of the Christian
King Louis XII and Queen Anne, his predecessor's widow,
whereby her duchy of Bretagne was retained to the crown
of France. The claim to the Duchy of Milan was a matter
which required consideration.

* # *

At the Sixth Consistory of the twelfth of September
1498, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named one cardinal,
who was

the Lord Georges d'Amboise, Gentleman of the Bed-
chamber to the Christian Kino-s Charles VIII and
Louis XII ; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San
Sisto.

* # *

At last, the Pope's Holiness consented to allow Cardinal
Cesare (detto Borgia) to renounce the scarlet cardinalitial
hat and the sapphire cardinalitial ring, for a secular duchy,
a royal wife, and a military career ; saying that his presence
among the clergy was sufficient to prevent reformation.^
A marriage was proposed for him with Dofia Carlotta de
Aragona Princess of Naples ; but rejected by King Don

1 " Una de las mas principales causas que dava, para que el Cardenal de
Valencia dexasse el capelo era, porque siendo a quel Cardenal, mientras en la
Iglesia estuviesse, era bastante para impedir que no se hiziesse in reformacion."
— Zurita, 126.

The Roaring Blaze

FederioTQ, who at the same time favoured the marriage
which took place between Madonna Lucrezia Borgia and
Don Alonso de Aragona Prince of BiscegHa. The plan of
Cardinal Cesare was aided by fresh outbreaks at the
pontifical baronage, especially by a new league of Colonna
and Orsini on behalf of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere.
Now, no more time was lost. Don Cesare (detto Borgia)
renounced his cardinalate in full consistory ; and journeyed
into France to cultivate the friendship of the Christian
King on behalf of the Papacy. New alliances were in the
air. King Louis XII saw no reason why he should remain in
the ridiculous and paralysing isolation which the bragga-
daccio of his predecessor had won. The Pope's Holiness
was by no means secure with Naples whose King Don
Federigo, though owing all to Him, was inclined to be
obstreperous and to show contempt, and to whose dominions
the Catholic King and Queen were reaching. An alliance
with the Papacy would suit the plans of France. An
alliance with France would be of eminent service to the
Papacy, at this moment when Colonna and Orsini were on
the war-path, and the Muslim Infidel stirring the East.
So, the mission of Don Cesare (detto Borgia) met with
great success ; a working understanding was arranged by
his diplomacy ; and the Christian King conferred on him
the French Duchy of Valentinois.

It became evident that Milan must cede to France, the
new ally of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI ; and this signified
the final rupture of the alliance of Borgia and Sfurza. First,
firm friends ; next, strong supporters of the House of
Borgia ; then, indifferent neutrals ; later, declared traitors ;
last, negligeable quantities ; the conduct of the House of
Sforza was influenced by one idea — loyalty to their name.
It was the head of the House who was responsible, Duke
Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti, a coward, a scoundrel, a
traitor, a murderer in intention, the wretch who brought
invading Frenchmen into Italy to aid his usurpation of the
throne of Milan — to him be all the blame. The Vice-
chancellor-Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza-Visconti and all
the Sforza of Pesaro, Santafiora, Chotignuc^la, Imola and
Forli, followed the head of their House ; and, as he led

155

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

them astray, so he must be decried. Sforza has produced
cardinals a many ; but never a Pope. Sforza was never
nearer to the pontificate than in this reign. Ascanio was
more than likely to succeed the Lord Alexander — far more
likely than the diabolical plebeian who did succeed. But
Sforza followed the head of its House ; committing political
suicide. Loyalty in any age is rare : under all circumstances
it is heroic, admirable.

From the Catholic King and Queen of Spain, Don Her-
nando and Dofia Isabella, came the sometime pontifical
captain Don Gonsalvo de Cordoba, charged to scold the
Holiness of the Pope because of His new alliance with
France. A very old weapon again was refurbished, and
Catholic Spain, in fear or envy, menaced a Spanish Pontiff,
Who had given her the New World, with Cardinal Giuliano
della Rovere's stupid General Council. So, in the shuffling
of the cards, misery made strange bed- fellows acquainted.

Then the Orient blazed with sudden war, and the Muslim
Infidel began hostilities with Venice. Christendom had lost
Lepanto ^ ; the Turks were intoxicated with success ; and
in Rome the Lord Alexander was deep in the scheme of a
new Crusade when the year 1498 died.

* * *

Naples looked with sallow eyes on the amicable relations
of the Papacy and France. The Christian King Louis XII
married Duke Cesare de Valentinois to Madame Charlotte,
daughter of Sieur Alain d'Albret and sister of King Jean
of Navarre ; and then entered into a treaty with the Venetian
Senate for the partition of the duchy of Milan. These acts
were discomfiting to the Regno, which could only regard
the triumph of its enemy and the ruin of its friend as
auguries of evil fortune. For Duke Cesare de Valentinois
undoubtedly was the enemy of Naples now after the rejec-
tion of his suit to Doiia Carlotta de Aragona, and in despite
of the fact that his mother's daughter, Madonna Lucrezia
Borgia, was allied by marriage to the Neapolitan Prince
Don Alonso of Bisceglia. The fruit of this last union was
a son, born in November 1499, baptized in the Xystine

^ But She won a signal and decisive victory there, with the aid of Our
Lady of Victory (Nt^'/, PoUziano would have said), in 1572.

156

The Roaring Blaze

Chapel by the name Roderico after the August Father of
Madonna Lucrezia.

Troubles were brewing for the Sforza. The Vice-
chancellor-Cardinal left Rome, and the French invaded
his brother's duchy of Milan, driving Duke Ludovico
Maria Sforza- Visconti (detto II Moro) to ignominious flight.
Ever ready to take advantage of the weakness of another
Power, also ever ready to be jealous of another Power's
success, Europe eyed the triumph of France with appre-
hension and disgust. And when the Lord Alexander
PP. VI shewed pleasure at the fall of Milan, Spain and
Portugal in their chagrin sent Orators to annoy His
Holiness with invectives against His morals,^ (as Satan
sometimes denounces Sin,) and the validity of His elec-
tion,^ demanding impossible reforms, and a General
Council at the Lateran. These petty incidents met the
fate which they deserved. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI
magnificently and magnanimously received the envoys in a
public consistory, and made no efforts to prevent them from
reciting their lessons. His Holiness invariably treated per-
sonalities with good-humoured scorn ; and bore the vented
spleen of kings as a mere essential inconvenience of His
rank, to be brushed away and forgotten with the little
muscarial nuisances of a Roman summer.

:ifc ^ ^

"A" 'TV* -7^

The year 1499, being the penultimate year of the
Fifteenth Century, was occupied as far as the City was
concerned with preparations for the Jubilee ; that curious
ceremony wherewith the Church affords an opportunity
to the faithful to cleanse their souls from stain of sin by
penitence and pious works. Penitence is an affair entirely
personal, to be entreated of between a sinner and his
Judge : but the Church, who (according to the Thirty Nine

^ " Mores esse profligates pietatis studium restinctum, flagitiorum licentiam
solutam, sanctissimas pretio indignissimis addici — remque esse in extremiiin
poene discrimen adductam." — (Osorins De rebus gestis Emanuelis, Op. I.
595-)

2 " Italia tutta aviebbe dimostrato lui non esser vero pontifice." — (Marino
Sanuto in Ue Leva, 6i.) " Que eran notorias las formas que se tuvieron en se
eleccion, y quan graves cosas se intentaron, y quan escandalosas." — Zurita»
1 59-)

157

chronicles of the House of Borgia

Articles) "hath power to ordain its rites and ceremonies,"
prescribes the ceremonial works to be performed. In brief,
these works consist in certain visits to certain basilicas of
Rome, which must be entered by certain doors, and where
certain prayers must be prayed. The Church, being a
system, is systematic. In return for these works always
supposing them to be accompanied by the appropriate
penitence. She promises, from the infinite treasury of the
Merits of our Divine Redeemer remission of the canonical
punishment incurred, during his past life, by the sinner now
penitent and purposing amendment. This Complaisance on
the part of the Church technically is called an Indulgence ;
and the Jubilee Indulgence is in high esteem and eager
acceptation. It is not in any sense a licence to sin ; as, by
a singularly silly misconception of its name,-^ it has been
supposed to be : but, absolutely, a formal wiping of the
slate, a ceremonial enablinof of the soul to start anew.
The Jubilee begins on Christmas Day with the opening,
by the Supreme Pontiff, of a certain door in the Vatican
Basilica, which remains an ingress until the Christmas Day
of the century-end ; and vast pilgrimages are used to flock
into the City at such times. The year 1499 saw erected
accommodation for visitors in the Borgo Nuovo, and
numerous improvements on the Vatican side of Tiber.
Churches were restored and furbished, the Mola of
Hadrian strengthened ; and the new wing of the Apostolic
Palace of the Vatican called the Borgia Tower, which
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI had built, was decorated in
fresco by the brush of Messer Bernardino Betti (detto II
Pinturicchio).

In his book on the lives of artists which Giovanni Vasari
wrote half a century later it is said that II Pinturicchio
painted on a wall of the Borgia Tower a picture of the
Blessed Virgin Mary before whom the Borgia Pontiff kneels
in adoration. Vasari also says that the painter used, as his
model for Deipara, Madonna Giulia Orsini (nate Farnese)
who was the Pope's mistress : and this statement is repeated

1 Indulgentia = Induli^ence, gentleness, complaisance, tenderness, fond-
ness, a remission of punishment or taxation.— (Andrews, Latin-English
Lexicon, 1853, p. 789.)

158

The Roaring Blaze

by many, to this day, including the German historian Herr
Gregorovius (who pretends to have been guided by docu-
ments and by documents alone), as an example of the flagi-
tious profligacy and profanity of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.
Painters of the Fifteenth Century, in the manner of
painters of the Twentieth, took their models as they found
them. If the perpetuation of the world's loveliness be no
sin, — and on that point there are diversities of human
opinion, and one Law, — then the person who is graced
with natural beauty incurs, not disgrace, but honour in
allowing it to be preserved by painting or by sculpture.
Perfect beauty does not seek concealment, but simply
admits the world to share its joy, without emotion of
vanity or shame, without regard to rank or dignity.
Pauline Buonaparte Princess Borghese was the model for
Canova's Venus. Bernini modelled his David (in Villa
Borghese) from his own yu/zwrijc, while Cardinal Barberini
(afterwards the Lord Urban PP. VIII) held the mirror.
That amiable rake Messer Rafael Sanzio da Urbino painted
his baker's daughter as Madonna. Messer Jacopo Sansovino
sculptured his Dionusos from a lad called Lippo Fabri, who,
from long posing bare, took cold and died of fever ; and, in
his last delirium, continually leaped from his bed to pose as
the god to whom his life was sacrificed. Messer Michel-
angelo Buonarroti, lost in admiration of his model the son
of Messer Francesco Raibolini of Bologna (detto II Francia),
with h s naif and customary depreciation of his brother-
painters, told the boy that his father made better men by
night than by day. Messer Andrea Verrocchio did his
slim lean David from one of his alert apprentices. Messer
Luca Signorelli painted his own dead son. Messer Rafaele
Sanzio himself, times without number, sat for his master II
Pinturicchio. The beautiful Simoneta of Florence was the
Venus of Messer Alessandro Filipepi (detto Botticelli) ; and
the sons of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici (two of whom
in after years wore the Triregno) did not disdain to sit as
models for this master. All the works of art of the Bor^ian
Era, representing saints and sinners, gods and demigods,
eudaimones and kakadaimones, all obviously were portraits ;
the very imperfections, which the century of the Discovery

159

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

of Man was too eager and too unsophisticated to plane
away to fit arbitrary conventions, shew this : and volumes
might be written of the models of great masters, who let
their youth or beauty be set down for all time, and then
achieved fame as Rafaele did, or Messer Simone Fiorentini's
(detto Donatello) nitid David or superb Saint George, or
Messer Andrea del Sarto's wistful Young Saint John.

Wherefore, not only may it be admitted, but defended,
that Madonna Giulia Orsini (nata Farnese), who had come
to share with Madonna Lucrezia Borgia the distinction of
being the fairest young mother in Rome, sat as model to II
Pinturicchio for the QtoroKog of the Borgia Tower.

But, in proof of the ghastly ignorance or devilish malice
which has sought to introduce an element of lubricity into
this affair, it is necessary that three important facts should
not go unconsidered. They are

(a) that the Borgia Tower contained three or four large

halls:
(/3) that the portrait of Madonna Giulia Orsini (nata
Farnese), detta La Bella, in the character of the
Blessed Virgin Mary wiih her Child, is a round
picture over the door of the third hall ; She is en-
circled by angels, and there are no other figures in
the composition :
(7) that the portrait of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI is a
square picture in the second hall; and the Holiness
of the Pope is presented in His pontifical habits
but bare-headed and without the triregno, devoutly
kneeling before the Apparition of our Divine
Redeemer Who rises from the tomb.
That is the little matter of the calumny, in support of
which the German historian with others of like mind have
solved the problem, of the squaring of the circle ! ^
* * *

Now that the French alliance was secure, with the help
of the Christian King Louis XII, the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI proceeded with the conquest of the Romagna and
the reduction of the rebellious vassals of the Holy See.
Duke Cesare de Valentinois was named Generalissimo of

' De Maricourt.
160

The Roaring Blaze

the pontifical army ; and a Papal Bull declared the fiefs of
Rimini, Pesaro, Imola, Forli, Camerino, Faenza, etc., to
have forfeited their rights until they should have made
satisfaction, paying the arrears of annual tribute into the
chancery of their paramount lord. The fact was fully
realised that it was useless to attempt to pacify " these
kakodaimones " with " holy water " ; as, as a last resort,
after seven years forbearance, force was to be used against
Sforza of Pesaro, Sforza-Riario of Imola and Forli, Man-
fredi of Faenza and the rest. The glowing splendour of
the personality of Duke Cesare de Valentinois, without
emotion and without remorse, fitted him for his task. He
was a perfect egoist, splendidly indifferent to all the world.
During his life, his enormous talents, his swift success, his
summary acts gained him the reputation of being super-
human, inevitable as Fate. On the eleventh of November
1499, he left Rome with four thousand conHottieri and three
hundred lancers. His lieutenant and standard-bearer was
the same noble and vigorous knight, Don Pietro Gregorio
Borgia, of the Veliternian Branch, who had changed clothes
with him in 1495, enabling him to cheat the Christian King.
On the seventeenth of December, he stormed and captured
Imola, whence Madonna Caterina Sforza, widow of Count
Girolamo Riario, had fled, refusing obedience or tribute to
her suzerain, and anew entrenching herself at Forli, her
other fief. She left at Imola such an odious memory of
her rule, that in after years the citizens would blush for
shame of it, while blessing Duke Cesare de Valentinois,
who, as the minister of Divine Justice, made an end.

The encounter between Madonna Caterina and Duke
Cesare caused extraordinary exhibitions of vigour and
agility on both sides. When a desperate unscrupulous
woman struggles with a strong and ruthless man, she will
do much damage : but, in the end, she must succumb.
Directly after the fall of Imola, Duke Cesare received
letters from Rome announcing that the Pope's Holiness
narrowly had escaped violent death : for Madonna Caterina,
to save herself and her fiefs, believing that Duke Cesare
would be compelled to relinquish his expedition if the
Pope were dead, had tried to slay the Holy Feather by

161 L

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

means of venom. To this end, she had sent two Orators
charged with proposed conditions of peace ; and also she
sent a letter (enclosed in a hollow stick, say some) which
would cause the Supreme Pontiff to fall dead as soon as
He should open it. When the plot was discovered,
Tommaso da Forli, a papal chamberlain who had brought
the missive, admitted his guilt ; (under the Question guilt
was commonly admitted) ; and said that he hoped, by the
death of the Pope, to raise the siege of Imola and Forli.
This extraordinary story is recorded by several chroniclers,
including Monsignor Hans Burchard the Caerimonarius,
the dull and stupid defamer of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.
The name of the chamberlain gives rise to curious specu-
lations. Tommaso da Forli presumably might be a bastard
of the city of Forli of insufficient birth to warrant the
adoption of the appellation of his unknown father or
mother ; and who might very well have taken the name of
his native city with the preposition " da" (not "de'," be it
noted) as a surname. Papal chamberlains are nothing
more than pontifical flunkeys, and " Thomas from Forli,"
being a lackey with access to the Pontifical Person, might
have been employed by Madonna Caterina to stab the
Pope. That is not unlikely : but the story of the en-
venomed letter obviously is false ; and interesting only as
shewing the trend of men's minds in 1499 ; and as a proof,
perhaps, that if, as has been alleged in the purest ignorance,
the envenominor of its foes was a custom of the House of
Borgia, at least one other Italian court indulged in the
same horrible habit upon occasion.

Madonna Caterina's second recorded act of treachery
took place after she had surrendered the city of Forli to Duke
Cesare. She retained possession of the castle, and refused
to give it up. As soon as the pontifical artillery began to
bombard her fortress on Christmas Day, she flew, from one
of the fortalices, a banner bearing the Lion of St. Mark, to
make believe that she was leagued with Venice, a republic
then at peace with the Holy See. It was a Venetian
attached to the staff of Duke Cesare who exposed the ruse,
with the affirmation that his Senate had no alliance with
Madonna Caterina. The day following, she gave signs of

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The Roaring Blaze

weakening ; and requested a parley with her beleaguerer.
When Duke Cesare approached, and just was about to put
his foot on the draw-bridge over the moat by which the
castle was surrounded, suddenly and without warning the
machine swung up and in. Madonna Caterina indignantly
disclaimed any perfidious intent, and threw all blame on
the castellan, Don Giovanni Casale : but all beholders were
aware of a deliberate attempt to capture and hideously to
kill the Generalissimo, which only had failed through too
eager precipitancy. No parley took place ; the siege con-
tinued ; and, in time, this audacious war-wife was compelled
to capitulate. Duke Cesare sent her to Rome as a prisoner-
of-state, with every chivalrous consideration for her sex as
well as for her illustrious birth as daughter of the great
Duke Francesco Sforza-Visconti of Milan : and on her
arrival in the City she was lodged in the Belvedere
Apartment of the Vatican, whence, after a futile attempt at
escape, she was transferred to honourable captivity in the
Mela of Hadrian.

During the siege of Forli an event occurred, of secondary
importance, except as evidence of the mystery surrounding
tne paternity of Duke Cesare. The Most Worshipful Lord
Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore) Cardinal-Presbyter of
the Title of Santa Maria m Via Lata died at Urbino. He
was one of the bastards of that beautiful splendid sneak and
coward Don Pedro Luis de Lan^ol y Borgia, (Duke of
Spoleto, younger brother of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
who had been named Prefect of Rome and Castellan of
Santangelo by his Uncle, the Lord Calixtus P.P. HI, and
who died in his flight from Rome in 1458). The said Most
Worshipful Lord Cardinal Giovanni Giuniore had been
Bishop of Melfi since 1492. In 1496, he was elevated to
the Sacred College, and given command of the condottieri
which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was preparing against
France ; and, when Duke Cesare renounced his scarlet early
in 1499, he had ceded to this cardinal his Metropolitan Arch-
bishopric of Valencia. The Lord Giovanni Giuniore had
held Legations to Umbria, Bologna, Ravenna and France,
and was acting as Legate to Umbria when he died at
Urbino. Duke Cesare himself announced this death to

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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

the Pope in a letter written from Forli, and dated the six-
teenth of January 1500, in these words: "I have news of
"the death of Cardinal Borgia, my brother, who died at
" Urbino." Duke Cesare wrote a kind of Latin neither
Golden nor Silvern but particular to himself, as also was his
Italian and there is no known instance of his using '"frater"
or " fratello" in the tertiary sense of " cousin." If the dead
Cardinal and the Duke were uterine brothers, then Don
Pedro Luis was their father ; and Duke Cesare was not the
son, but the nephew, of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. The
death of the Cardinal, however, has been alleged by some
chroniclers to have been caused by venom administered by
Duke Cesare. The charge is essentially absurd. There
was no motive ; for Cardinal and Duke were comrades,
brother s-in-arnis, equally engaged in the reduction of the
rebellious Romagna ; there could have been no jealousy,
for they occupied separate and independent ranks, (of which
Duke Cesare had chosen his,) the Cardinal Giovanni
Giuniore as Legate, being the older man (41), and Duke
Cesare the younger (26) as Generalissimo : nor was the
Cardinal rich enough to make his death desirable. But, at
all events, it was impossible that Duke Cesare should
envenom him for the simple reasons that the two were many
miles apart during seventeen days before the death, and
that no venom of slow action was known to the Fifteenth
Century any more than it is to the Twentieth.

* * *

At the Seventh Consistory of the sixteenth (or twentieth)
of March 1500, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named three
cardinals, who were

(a) the Lord Don Didaco Hurtado de Mendoza, a

Spaniard ; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa

Sabina : (he was afterwards called "The Cardinal

of Spain :")
(j3) the Lord Amaneus (Amanateus) d'Albret, of

Navarre ; Cardinal- Deacon of San Niccolo in

Carcere Tulliano :
(y) the Lord Don Pedro Luis de Borja, a Pontifical

Nephew, brother of the Cardinal of Monreale

(Giovanni Seniore) ; succeeded his deceased cousin
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The Roaring Blaze

Cardinal Giovanni Giuniore as Cardinal- Deacon of

Santa Maria in Via Lata.

* * *

The Christian King Louis XII, now calling himself the
"Second Caesar," was not idle during this year 1500.
Duke Ludovico Maria Sforza-Visconti certainly recovered
his duchy of Milan ; but, after the Triumph given to Duke
Cesare de Valentinois in Rome on his return from the
Romaofna with Madonna Caterina Sforza-Riario as his
prisoner-of-war, the prestige of the Papacy was so increased
that the French took heart and gained a notable victory at
Novara, capturing Duke Ludovico Maria and his brother
the Vicechancellor, who then were incarcerated safely in
France.

-¥' -^ ^

^ T?" TT-

In July, Don Alonso de Aragona, Prince of Bisceglia,
Quadrata, and Salerno, and husband of Madonna Lucrezia
Borgia was murdered ; and the opinion carefully and care-
lessly has been cultivated that this was one of the crimes
of Duke Cesare de Valentinois and the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI.

According to the account of Don Paolo Cappello the
Orator of Venice, as given by Herr Gregorovius, Prince
Don Alonso, going to the Vatican at eleven o'clock at
night on the fifteenth of July, was assaulted on the steps of
St. Peter's by masked men armed with poignards, and
wounded in the head and arms and thighs. Weak from
loss of blood, he dragged himself into the Apostolic Palace,
where his wife Madonna Lucrezia swooned at the sight of
him. He was carried into one of the rooms ; and a
cardinal, believing him to be in the article of death,
imparted the usual absolution. But his youthful vigour
enabled him to progress on the road to recovery, under the
nursing of his wife and of his sister-in-law Madonna Sancia,
who, with their own hands, prepared his food (they were
royal princesses), while the Pope's Holiness provided a
body-guard of men-at-arms. No one knew who had
wounded the prince : but gossip said that it was the same
hand that had slain the Duke of Gaudia. Duke Cesare
de Valentinois had issued an edict forbidding any one

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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

bearing arms to pass between the Mola of Hadrian and the
Vatican. Don Paolo Cappello further records that Duke
Cesare had said, " I did not wound the prince : but, if I had
"done so, he had well deserved it." Duke Cesare was not
ashamed to visit the invalid ; and, in coming away, he had
said, " That, which is not done at noon, can be done at
sunset." More than a month later, at nine o'clock on the
night of the eighteenth of August, Duke Cesare again
visited Prince Don Alonso ; and, having driven Madonna
Sancia and Madonna Lucrezia from the room, he intro-
duced his captain Don Michelotto who strangled the
wounded man. After this, Duke Cesare publicly declared
that he had killed the Prince of Bisceglia, because the latter
had tried to murder him by setting an archer to shoot him
silently in the Vatican gardens : — so far Don Paolo Cappello.
Monsignor Hans Burchard the Caerirnonarius says,
that, at eleven o'clock on the night of the fifteenth of July,
Prince Don Alonso the husband of Madonna Lucrezia
Borgia was found on the steps of St. Peter's, wounded by
assassins in the head, the knee, and the right arm. After
the assault, the assassins were escorted by forty knights
beyond the City-gate called Porta Pertusa. Prince Don
Alonso lived near the Vatican in the palace of the Cardinal
of Santa Maria in Portico ; but, owing to the serious nature
of his wounds, he was carried into the pontifical palace, and
lodged in a room of the Borgia Tower. When King Don
Federigo heard of the attempt upon his nephew, he sent
Messer Galieno his own leech to cure him. Later the
prince was strangled ; and the leeches with a certain
hunchback servant were put to the Question in the Mola of
Hadrian, and afterwards released as innocent.

A chronicle of Pavia of much later date says that Duke
Cesare killed Prince Don Alonso at a time when he was in
bed with his own wife Madonna Lucrezia.

Before examining the divergences of this evidence, it
may as well be said that the original desjDatches of Don
Paolo Cappello the Orator of Venice are not attainable.
Many years later, a learned patrician of Venice, Don
Marino Sanuto, wrote the History of the Venetian Republic
from 1496 to 1533 in fifty-six folio volumes. He cited the

166

The Roaring Blaze

state-archives, despatches of orators, etc., and his work is
marvellously well done : but. when all is said, the fact
remains that the despatches of Don Paolo Cappello, with
those of many others, have been edited by a stranger to
the writers, and to the circumstances under which they
wrote. Monsignor Burchard held an important office at
the Vatican. He was German, and inimical to Borgia.
On matters connected with his office of Caerimonarius, i.e.,
the superintendence of public functions, he might speak
with some authority : but beyond that he is an inveterate
gossip and scandalmonger. In his case, also, it is impossible
to know what he really wrote, because the original holo-
graph of his Diarium (with the Diarium of Infessura and
other similar works) even now awaits discovery by students
of ancient archives.

What charges lie against Duke Cesare de Valentinois ?
It is Cappello who states that he drove away the women,
and caused Prince Don Alonso to be strangled by Don
Michelotto. Burchard appears ignorant of these details.
It is Cappello who states that Duke Cesare admitted and
defended the murder. Of this Burchard says nothing : he
relates that the prince was strangled ; and, from his mention
of the interrogation of the leeches and of the hunchback,
it wcmld appear that others beside Duke Cesare were
suspected. Cappello says that the prince was poignarded
in head, arms, and thighs; Burchard, in head, right arm,
and knee. Cappello speaks of a guard appointed by the
Pope to watch the wounded man. Burchard does not
record this. There are discrepancies between the two
accounts ; some, of reasonable importance: e.g., Burchard's
account of the forty knights who escorted the assassins
from the City ; and of the sending of the royal leech with-
out mentioning any suspicions on the part of King Don
Federigo. But nowhere can be found a proved accusation
against Duke Cesare de Valentinois, or against the Holiness
of the Pope.

From a study of the various statements, (derisable
though to some extent they be,) and of known facts, a
reasonable enough history of the affair may be compiled,
and one which happens to be exculpatory of Borgia.

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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Don Alonso de Aragona Prince of Bisceglia, Salerno,
etc., was a nephew of King Don Federigo of Naples. At
the age of nineteen, he married Madonna Lucrezia Borgia,
on political grounds to consolidate friendly relations then
existing between Papacy and Regno. All accounts agree
that this was a genuine love-match as well ; and the
chronicler Talini says of the prince, "he was the most
" beautiful youth that I have ever seen in Rome."

A year after the marriage Madonna Lucrezia bore him
an heir, Don Roderico ; who immediately was provided-for
with the duchy of Sermoneta. The young Prince and
Princess of Bisceglia lived in the palace of the Cardinal
of Sante Maria in Portico by the Vatican, in order to be
near to the Pope.

In the year 1 500, the relations of Papacy and Regno had
undergone a change. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was
now allied with France, the old and still-distrusted enemy
of Naples ; and King Don Federigo had joined the unmiti-
gable handful of men who were blackmailing the Pope's
Holiness with threats of a General Council. The Prince of
Bisceglia as a Neapolitan, therefore, would not be persona
gratissima to the supporters of Borgia.

When it was desired to reward and exalt a subject, the
sovereigns of the Borgian Era had the naive habit of dis-
possessing one of their enemies, and conferring the vacated
fief on their new protege. In order to enrich Prince Don
Alonso with the principality of Salerno, the Majesty of
Naples had deprived the noble Neapolitan House of San-
severini. In order to enrich His grandson the baby Don
Roderico with the duchy of Sermoneta, the Holiness of the
Pope had despoiled the noble Roman House of Caietani.
And it readily will be understood that Caietani and San-
severini were extremely likely to view these losses with
anything but resignation.

Reg-ardino- the edict of Duke Cesare de Valentinois,
that none should go armed between the Mola and the
Vatican, it must be admitted that this was only a very
ordinary precautionary measure. The district named is
the immediate precincts of the pontifical palaces of peace
and war, which were connected by the fortified gallery-

168

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passage, through the Region of Borgo, called Lo Andare ;
and the baring of arms within the presence of royalty was,
at all times, and in all courts, a capital crime. Duke Cesare
as Generalissimo was responsible for the maintenance of
order ; and he was no laggard in any official capacity. If
then, the truth of the stabbing on the steps of St. Peter's
and the strangulation in the Borgia Tower be granted,
they might be defended as an execution of the death-
penalty prescribed lor a breach of the law, such as the
fiery Neapolitan prince is extremely likely to have com-
mitted. Royal or patrician criminals were frequently done
to death in private, by quasi-assassination, to avoid the
degradation of the touch of the public carnefex.

Again, granting the said stabbing and strangling, and
regarding them as an act of private vengeance on the part
of Duke Cesare against the prince ; it should be remembered
that people had the custom of defending their lives by
slaughtering an enemy who set archers to shoot at them in
the garden.

But, during the pontificate of the Lord Julius P. P. II
(Giuliano della Rovere) the eternal enemy of the House of
Borgia, (whose not mean portrait by Messer Rafaele Sanzio
da Urbino may be seen at the National Gallery,) the
captain Don Michelotto, who is supposed to have strangled
the Prince of Bisceglia by order of Duke Cesare, was seized
and put to the Question in the usual manner. It was
attempted to find out, by means of this rigour, the truth
about the various crimes which he was said to have com-
mitted for his master ; and particularly the murder of Prince
Don Alonso. But althouo-h he was in the hands of a ruth-
less despot, who, legally could have broiled him alive like a
forger or could have broken with iron bars every bone of
every limb of his body on the Wheel, with none to hinder,
Don Michelotto soon was set at liberty as having given no
evidence of guilt, either on his own part or of that of Duke
Cesare. It will appear from this fairly convincing test that
there is a strong reason for regarding the story of strangu-
lation as a piece of fiction. As a last contribution to the
theory, it is suggested that contortions caused by tetanus,
which might have set in by reason of the poignard wounds,

169

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

may have simulated, to the ignorant and casual observer,
the appearance of strangulation. The bacillus of tetanus is
of earth origin, and every one knows the vulgar method of
wiping a dagger. Otherwise the strangulation theory may
be dismissed.

Of the stabbing on the steps of St. Peter's there is no
such room for doubt. The discrepancy between Cappello
(edited by Sanuto, understood,) and Burchard, (a copy of
him by an unknown hand, also understood,) as to the
position of the wounds has no material significance. Head,
arms, and thighs, says Cappello ; head, right arm, and knee,
says Burchard. It is quite clear that the unfortunate youth
(he was just of the age of twenty-one years) wore beneath
his doublet one of the fashionable mail-shirts of the day,
strong enough to turn a tempered blade at closest quaners
and yet so fine that it could be hidden in two hands ; and
which caused him to be wounded anywhere except in his
handsome trunk.

The number of wounds and their wide distribution speak
of more than one occasion. The friofhtful loss of blood
(the wound in the thigh), the delusions of Fifteenth-Century
chirurgeons, the elementary condition of the pharmacopoeia,
the time of year — Sol in Leone — when Rome fizzles in
fevers and insanitary stenches, preclude possibility of
recovery : and it is only reasonable to conceive that Prince
Don Alonso died, after a month's lingering weakness and
fever, of the poignard wounds and the attentions of the
leeches, unassisted by a problematic noose, or the compres-
sion of his windpipe by strong thumbs.

Then who were the masked men with poignards, and
who is responsible for them ?

In this connection, Duke Cesare de Valentinois has not
been named. The Pope's Holiness did not alter His
behaviour to him. He found him antipathetic as always :
some said He was afraid of him.^ But He did not cease
to use him, to allow him access to His person, to decorate
him with titles ; and the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was far too

1 " II Papa ama ed a gran paura del figliuolo duca." — Alberi, Relationi III.
iii. lo.

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The Roaring Blaze

magnificently invincible and too conscious of His power,
not to have resented the murder of the beloved husband of
His charminof and favourite daughter. A Pontiff Who
could, and did, crush reig-nino- sovereigns at His will, was
not likely to fear a mere duke. The clergy treated Dukc^
Cesare, as always, with profound respect. And — Madonna
Lucrezia Borgia, until the very end of his life, maintained
friendly relations with him ; and it was to her that the death
of the Prince of Bisceglia brought most grievous trouble.
Evidently the people most intimately concerned with Duke
Cesare did not look upon him as an assassin : at any rate,
the legend of his guilt subsequently emanated, not from
them but, from his foes.

There was a total absence of motive on the part of Duke
Cesare, unless the theory of leo;al but private execution, or
the theory of jusiifiable homicide, be maintained. And for
want of proof of strangulation, these can be dismissed with
deserved contempt.

But — there was a very strong motive for the stabbing
present in the Neapolitan House of Sanseverini, and in the
Roman House of Caietani, who had suffered loss of the
principality of Salerno, and of the duchy of Sermoneta, in
order to the enrichment of Prince Don Alonso of Bisceglia
and Salerno and his infant son Duke Roderico of Sermoneta.
Is it probable that great barons of the Fifteenth Century,
or of any other century, calmly would submit to deprivation
of their choicest fiefs, without at least an attempt to gain
satisfaction of one or another kind.'* It may be concluded,
then, that in all human probability Prince Don Alonso was
the victixn of a vendetta. His assassination was a private
affair. The assassins were professionals in the pay of
Sanseverini, or Caietani, or both together ; who, when the
deed apparently was done, (here Burchard recording proba-
bility is valuable,) were surrounded by forty knights
(Sanseverini or Caitani of course) and escorted out of the
City by the nearest gate. Porta Pertusa behind St. Peter's,
(the nearest gate to avoid attracting the attention of the
bargelli in Borgo or Trastevere), whence, by a short circuit
to the south, they would attain the Via Portuense, sixteen
miles of which would bring them to Porto on the right bank

171

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

of Tiber, opposite to the fortress at Ostia on the left bank
belonging to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere.

# ^ *

At the Eighth Consistory of the twenty-eighth of Sep-
tember 1500, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named ten
cardinals, who were,

(a) the Lord Don Jaime Serra, a Catalan, Vicegerent
of Rome ; Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of San
Vitale :

(/3) the Lord . . . Bacocz, an Hungarian, Chancellor
of Hungary ; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San
Martino ai Monti :

(7) the Lord Don Pedro Isualles, a Sicilian ; Cardinal-
Presbyter of the Title of San Ciriaco alle Te^'me
Diocleziane :

(S) the Lord Don Francisco de Borja, bastard of the
Lord Calixtus P.P. HI ; who had lived obscurely
from his birth in 1441 until now ; Cardinal-Pres-
byter of the Title of Santa Lucia in Silice alias in
Orfea :

(e) the Lord Don Juan Vera, a Spaniard, Archbishop
of Saliterno ; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of
Santa Balbina :

iPl the Lord Alois Podachatarios, a noble of Cyprus,
the Pontifical Greek Secretary ; Cardinal-Presbyter
of the Title of Sant'Agata in Snbnrra :

(17) the Lord Giovantonio Trivulzio, a noble of Milan,
elevated to oblige the Christian King Louis XII
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Anastasia

(0) the Lord Giambattista Ferrari, Bishop of Modena
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Crisogono :

((c) the Lord Gianstefano Ferreri, Abbot of San
Stefano di Vercello ; Cardinal-Presbyter of the
Title of San Sergio e San Bacco :

(<) the Lord Marco Cornaro, brother of Madonna
Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus ; Cardinal-
Deacon of Santa Maria in Portico.

# -k- #

In view of the danger loominsf in the near East, the

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Lord Alexander P.P. VI issued a Bull proclaiming a new
Crusade ; and addressed a Brief in the same sense to the
Christian King Louis XII. Venice being in serious and
immediate peril received His help in the shape of money
and troops. Nevertheless though Modon fell to the
Muslim Infidel, even this disaster, giving point to the
Pope's exordium, failed to arouse the Christian Princes
of Europe from their disgraceful apathy. The Lord
Alexander P.P. VI now imposed a graduated crusade tax
on the revenues of the Sacred ColleQ;"e, each cardinal being-
mulcted on the value of his benefices. This, though a
righteous and elevating ensample, was looked upon with
extreme disgust ; for, like other men, cardinals are very
sensitive in the pouch. Cardinal Raymond Perauld, for-
given for his treachery with Charles VIII, was named
Apostolic Ablegate to Germany charged with authority to
reform the abuses, which avarice and ambition on the part
of German prelates were causing, to the shame of all right-
minded men. But the Elect-Emperor Maximilian — (who,
in a picture by Albrecht Durer in the British Museum,
modestly is styled Inipej^ator CcEsar Divus Maxiinilia^iiis
Pius Felix Augtishis ;^ and, in another, on vellum in the
same collection, bears, after the imperial titles, the styles of
all sovereigns of Europe, including Rex Anglice, in despite
of King Henry VII Tudor then happily reigning,) — the
Elect-Emperor Maximilian remembered that in 1496 his
ill-advised advance into Venetia had been opposed and not
received with obsequious adulation ; and he now refused to

1 This title is hopelessly irregular. The Princeps of the Holy Roman
Empire only becomes Caesar Romanoriim Imperator Semper Augustus mundi
totius Dominus universis dominis univcrsis principibus et populis Semper Venerandus
by the herald's proclamation after he has been stripped, anointed, clothed in
the consecrated dalmatica, ordained deacon, and crowned with the Iron Crown
of Monza and the Gold Diadem of the Empire by the hands of the Supreme
Pontiff Himself. The title at present is dormant. If the sovereign is of the
Swabian House, precedent demands that he must go to Monza or to Sant'
Ambrogio at Milan for the Iron Crown, and to San Giovanni Laterano at
Rome for the Gold Diadem. But Imperial coronations, (the sovereign not
being of the Swabian House,) at the Pope's pleasure have taken place else-
where. Caesar Friedrich IV was the last Emperor crowned in Rome. Caesar
Francis II was the last to wear the imperial crown. He resigned it in 1806,
having taken the title of Emperor of Austria in 1804. Before coronation by
the Pope the title of "The Elect-Emperor" is used ; and that is all which
Maximilian can claim.

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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

allow the Papal Ablegate to enter his Empire. In such
pettiness did the Holy Roman Emperor of the Habsburg
House of Austria have continual joy.

This year in Rome was the Holy Year, the last of the
Fifteenth Century, the year of Jubilee. The Holy Father
extended the privilege to Christendom ; and huge pilgrim-
ages of persons of rank and distinction from all Christian
countries save Germany and Switzerland flocked to the
Eternal City throughout the year. The pilgrims' alms
considerably added to the papal treasury ; and, by order of
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, these exclusively were set
aside for the pacification of the States of the Church in the
Romagna ; a magnificent example of the political foresight
which secured the temporal possessions of the Holy See
during three hundred and seventy years, till 1870. Before
the end of the year 1500 the splendour of Duke Cesare de
Valentinois was increased by the title of Gonfaloniere of
the Holy Roman Church : and, with the ample funds of the
Jubilee, he had enlarged his army by the acquisition of
several squadrons of French mercenaries, for a new expedi-
tion into the rebellious provinces.

During the first year of the Sixteenth Century, a.d. 1501,
the Apostolic Ablegate Cardinal Raymond Perauld came
to an agreement with the Diet at Nurnberg : and the project
of a Crusade was improved by the formation of a new
league of the Papacy with Venice and Hungary, (the two
countries which lay at the mercy of the Muslim Infidel ;)
and by some naval successes with the conquest of Santa
Maura by Bishop Giacopo da Pesaro.

^ ^ *??"

In the spring, Duke Cesare marched his reinforced
army to beleaguer Faenza. There, the citizens had con-
structed a bastion during the winter at the convent of the
Friars Minor-of-the-Observance outside the walls On
the twelfth of April, this defence was taken by Duke
Cesare, who installed a park of artillery to breach the
citadel. The brave Faenzesi made sorties from their city
for grain and cattle : but the effect of famine soon began to
tell. (This account of the siege is Canon Sebastiano
di Zaccaria's.) The rich shared their bread and wine with

174

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the poor. When money for paying the soldiers failed, the
priests and monks gave the sacred vessels. Women took
part in the defence, throwing stones from the walls, or
strengthening the gabions with earthworks ; while the
most daring fought, with casque and pike and harquebus,
when their men slept. Matrons prayed in the churches.
Barefooted boys and girls ran about the streets praying for
Divine Assistance for their fathers on the ramparts. On
the eighteenth of April, the sixth day of siege, the assault
was made. Duke Cesare had advised the neig^hbourinsf
princes; and Don Alfonso d'Este, heir of Ferrara, with his
heraklean brother the athletic young Cardinal Ippolito
were come post-haste to see the sight. (It is worth noting
that advantage was taken of this visit to plan a marriage
between the young widow Madonna Lucrezia Borgia and
Don Alfonso d'Este.) The assault lasted from one o'clock
in the afternoon till four. The assailants severely suffered
from harquebuses, and flaming darts, and showers of stones,
with which the beleaguered greeted them, intrepidly fighting
on the smoking debris of their walls. Nothing was seen to
equal Faenza's valour : but Duke Cesare's condottieri also
gave signal proof of bravery. Don Taddeo della Volpe of
Imola, on being struck in the eye by an arrow, tore it out
and went on fighting, saying that he was fortunate enough
to see but half the danger now. Duke Cesare conceived
so great an admiration for the courage of his enemies, as to
say that, with an army of Faenzesi, he cheerfully would
undertake the conquest of all Italy. During seven hours
on the twenty-first of April, artillery bombarded the citadel,
which now was little more than a heap of ruins. Every
night, some of the beleaguered slid over the walls, and
escaped into the camp of Duke Cesare, worn by famine
and the fatigue of the siege. On the night of the twenty-
second, one Bartolomeo Grammante, a dyer, fled from a
fortalice where he was on guard and came to the Duke,
saying that there was mutiny in Faenza, that ammunition
was exhausted, and offering to point out a moment favour-
able for assault. Incontinently Duke Cesare hanged this
traitorous felon near the city- wall, out of respect for the
brave Faenzesi and their admirable resistance. Three

175

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

days later, the end came. The conqueror offered most
honourable terms : complete liberty for the Tyrant Don
Astorgio Manfredi, and his relations, to go and come at
will ; the integrity of his property and payment of his
debts ; confirmation of all rights and privileges for the
citizens.

On the twenty-sixth of April, the municipal officers
came to the convent of the Observantines where Duke
Cesare lodged ; and swore between his hands the feudal
oath of fidelity to the over-lord, the Holiness of the Pope.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, came also Don Astorgio
Manfredi with his kin. This unfortunate youth was only
of the age of sixteen years, the servant of his own subjects,
and an orphan whose father, Don Galeotto Manfredi, had
been murdered by his mother, Madonna Francesca
Bentivogli. A Venetian chronicler says of him that he
was "a sickly lad i^pnto 77ial san) but beautiful fair and
rosy," obviously rotten with struma ; and as such he
appears in his portrait in the Palazzo Zauli-Naldi of
Faenza, wearing an expression of profound melancholy.
The young Tyrant and his bastard brother, Don
Gianevangelista Manfredi, (who was of the age of fourteen
years, and had had a command during the siege,) received
so courteous a reception from Duke Cesare that they
decided to remain with him. So far, the behaviour of the
Generalissimo appears to have been inspired by noble
magnanimity.

And here, there is a lacuna. The history of Don
Astorgio becomes blank. Research so far has failed to
discover any trace of him for months.

Some time after his capitulation, Don Astorgio and his
brother were found incarcerated in the Mola of Hadrian, in
the royal apartment which Madonna Caterina Sforza-
Riario had vacated on going into exile in France :
and of this, also, there has been no explanation yet dis-
covered.

It is permissible to suppose that after Duke Cesare
generously had granted their unconditional liberty, some
imperious political necessity intervened ; such as that Don
Astorgio and Don Gianevangelista, held as hostages,

176

The Roaring Blaze

would guarantee the tranquillity of Faenza, preventing
further rebellion. Duke Cesare's apparent breach of faith
is not without its parallels in ancient, modern, and contem-
porary history ; a political crime, perhaps necessary, but
for which there is neither extenuation nor excuse.

But later still, the story ends in tragedy. The two
boys are said to have been killed, and their bodies cast in
Tiber. The only two chronicles which have the slightest
value are those of Don Antonio Giustiniani the Orator of
Venice, who was in Rome ; and of Monsignor Hans
Burchard the Papal Caerimonarius, who might have been
there : though the originals of these chronicles, be it remem-
bered, are yet to seek.

The former wrote to his government,

" They say that this night those two young lords of
" Faenza with their steward have been slain and
"thrown in Tiber.
The latter records in his journal,

"There were found in Tiber, suffocated and dead,
"the lord of Faenza, a youth of about the age of
"eighteen years, beautiful and well-shaped, with a
" stone at his neck ; and two youths bound together
"by the arms, the one of fifteen and the other of
" twenty-five years ; and near them a certain woman,
"and several others.
It is said also that the victims were floating in Tiber in
the sight of all.

The affair is the occasion of another of the calumnies
which have been cast upon the House of Borgia. Not one
word is said by contemporaries implicating Borgia in this
crime : yet the modern fiction-monger or quoad-historian
who without hesitation did not place it to Borgia's debit
would consider himself guilty of dereliction of duty.

The statements of the Venetian and the German, quoted
above, will not bear examination in the light of common
sense. A rational and unprejudiced observer will have
noticed that Giustiniani does not speak of having seen with
his own eyes. He is not imparting official information : he
reports a mere on dit. But Burchard's account is a miracle
of Teutonic completeness at all costs, and lack of sense of

177 M

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

the ridiculous. He does not say that he has seen the show.
He gives no authority for his statements. But he adds, to
Don Astorgio and Don GianevangeHsta, a youth of twenty-
five, a certain woman, and several others ! Is any reliance
to be placed on Burchard, uncorroborated and unashamed ?
He says that the corpse of Don Astorgio had a stone at
his neck, yet he was floating on Tiber in the sight of all !
How can a cadaver float when weighted with a stone ?
The density of Tiber is not like that of the Dead Sea or
Droitwich Brine Baths. Also, Tiber notoriously is a swift
current, far too turbid to permit a crowd of corpses placidly
to float in the sight of all. Also, Tiber exclusively was
used for drinking and household purposes, and constantly
by all Romans, high and low, for swimming : the heraklean
Lord Cardinal Prince Ippolito d'Este swam there. Also,
the Borgia were pre-eminently clever — cunning, their
calumniators say. Then, is it probable that men of any
common sense would offer a hecatomb of assassinations to
Tiber, and to the sight of all, weighted only by Burchard's
single stone ? Finally, how is it that in the history of
Faenza, and of the relations of these young lords, there is
not a single allusion to the manner of their death ? The
learned Padre Leonetti justly contends that the story of the
murder is a mere fabrication ; that the scribes, with Burchard
and Giustiniani, have seen no floating bodies ; but that they
have contented themselves, according to their custom, with
fresh vilifications of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and of
Duke Cesare de Valentinois.

Let it be remembered that Don Astorgio Manfredi was
" un puto mal san," a sickly or strumous lad. Let it be
remembered how extremely easy it is to kill strong boys off,
between their fourteenth and their eighteenth year, simply
by depriving them of hope and joy. Let the most pathetic
history of Don Astorgio Manfredi, of which the barest
briefest extract has been given, let his situation, and that
of his young brother Don GianevangeHsta, be realized
with care ; and the humanly natural supposition will arise,
that these two died natural deaths due to constitutional
defects aggravated by hopeless imprisonment in the Mola
of Hadrian,

178

The Roaring Blaze

It would be hard, however, if the enemies of Borgia
could find nothing worse to say ; and the abominable
Messer Francesco Guicciardini of Florence, pandar of
France, minion of Ghibelline Colonna, does not fail to
make use of that curiously common and invariably incon-
sequent calumny which mediocrity, in all ages, hurls at
genius. He writes, " Astorgio was not deprived of life
before having first been used, they say, to satiate the pas-
sions of a certain person." Under the pen of historians
who followed Guicciardini, this "certain person" quite
naturally has become the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. It is
on the authority of this Guicciardini that writers, far from
the scene, and long after the deed, have allowed them to
assail an old man, a priest, the Head of the Church, with a
shameful and execrable accusation. Did Guicciardini make
the very difficult examinations of this problematic corpse
which medical-law ordains ? He was inspired, and very
badly, by his hatred. He has not proved the crimes of the
Pope. He has only exhibited the fertility of a monstrously
unclean and salacious imagination, the devergondage of a
mind stuffed with reminiscences of Tiberius, of Nero, of
Elagabalus ! {Rdn^, Comte de Maricottrt.)

# * #

The Lord Alexander P.P. VI had now reached the
summit of His magnificent pontificate. With the States of
the Church slowly but surely being brought under domina-
tion by the splendid gains of Duke Cesare de Valentinois,
with the interested support of the Christian King of France
and the Catholic King of Spain, (for the latter had the
sense to cease from annoying a powerful pontiff), and with
His neighbour the Regno under its weak King Don
Federigo of no importance, there was nothing that He
might not do for the enrichment of the Papacy or the
aggrandisement of the House of Borgia. His policy was
beginning to take shape. The enormous and magnificent
project, which appears to have dictated all His actions, was
assuming a concrete form. Difficulties of every kind had
beset Him from the beginning; and difficulties, He doubt-
less knew, would be His constant portion : but by patience,

179

chronicles of the House of Borgia

agility of mind, diplomatic skill, singleness of purpose, and
His invincible indomitable will, He had beaten down His
opponents one by one, or had turned their opposition into
support which now enabled Him to act independently and
upon His own initiative.

He made short work with the rebellious barons of Rome.
He blasted Don Pierfrancesco Colonna with excommunica-
tion. He confiscated the fiefs of the Houses of Colonna
and Savelli, both of the Ghibelline faction, who had defied
Him by secession to Charles VIII and the unmitigable
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere in 1494. He distributed
the titles and estates so acquired among members of the
House of Borgia.

On the first of September 1501, He issued a Brief
leeitimatine that bastard of Duke Cesare de Valentinois
and a Roman spinster, who had been born in 1498, and
was known as Infans Romanus ; to whom He gave the
name Giovanni, after His favourite son the murdered
Duke of Gandia, as well as the duchy of Nepi. But, by
a second Brief of the same date (in the Archives of
Modena) He declares this Don Giovanni Borgia to be the
son 7iot of the aforesaid Duke (Cesare) btit of us and the
said spinster}

There exists no explanation of the contradiction in these
two Briefs. It is, however, certain that no human tempta-
tion could induce a Pope to publish such a statement as
that of the second, unless the thing were true ; and, in the
case of a Pope as powerful as the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
there was no superior power which could force Him against
His will. As to one of the Briefs being truth and the other
falsehood, it may be remembered that there is a general
law, a Necessary Proposition, "The lesser is contained in
the greater." The thing was true. The Lord Alexander
P.P. VI, at the age of sixty-seven years, was the father of
Don Giovanni Borgia, whom He created Duke of Nepi in

1501-

The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was a very great man;

guilty of hiding none of his human weakness : and on this

account a Terror to hypocrites of all ensuing ages. Nothing

1 " Non de prefato duca sed de Nobis et dicta muliere soluta."

180

The Roaring Blaze

in the world is so unpleasant, so disconcerting, so utterly
abhorred, as the plain and naked truth.

* * #

After the spoliation of the Houses of Colonna and
Savelli — an act which reduced them from that of premier
barons of the Holy See to a position of such insignificance
that they no more appear in the history of this pontificate, —
the Pope's Holiness married Madonna Lucrezia Borgia to
Don Alfonso d'Este, the heir of Duke Ercole of Ferrara.
This was after her year of widowhood. She was now the
wife of royalty, with a near prospect of a throne, worshipped
by the poor for her boundless and sympathetic charity, by the
learned for her intelligence, by her kin for her loving loyalty,
by her husband for her perfect wifehood and motherhood,
by all for her transcendent beauty and her spotless name.
Why it has pleased modern writers and painters to depict
this pearl among women as a " poison-bearing maenad"
a " veneficous bacchante" stained with revolting and
unnatural turpitude, is one of those riddles to which there
is no key. If physiognomy be an index to character, the
most superficial inspection of the effigy of Madonna
Lucrezia Borgia must put her calumniators to endless
shame. In that simple profile, of features clean-cut,
delicate, refined ; in those chaste contours so gently
rounded, so sweetly fresh and feminine ; in the carriage
of that flavian head well-poised and nobly frank, there can
lurk no taint of decadent degeneracy. In the Ambrosian
Library at Milan, is a long tress of her beautiful yellow
hair, shining and pale ; with her scholarly letters to a
learned poet and cardinal the Lord Pietro Bembo, who
had dedicated to her a genial Dialogue on platonics in
Italian ; an Elegy in Latin, in praise of her singing and
recitation,

'' quicquid agis, quicquid loqueris, delectat : et omnes
'^ praecedunt Charlies, subsequiturque decor ;

with an Epigram on a gold serpent bracelet that she wore,

Armilla Aurea Lucretiae Borgiae Ferrariae Ducis In
Serpentis Effigiem Formata

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

" Dypsas cr^avi : sum facta, Tago dum perluor, aurum

''tortile nymphavMm manibus decus ; at mentor dim

'' Eridani, atiditaque ttia Lzicretia forma,

" Eliadum, ne te caperent clectra tuaru7fi,

'' gestandum carae fluvius transmisit alumnae.

( Another poet of even greater fame, the limpid Ariosto,
praised Madonna Lucrezia as " a second Lucrece, brighter
for her virtues than the star of regal Rome." And even
a modern writer of the eminence of John Addington
Symonds, (who, in his " Renascence" habitually credits
calumnies against Borgia in his text, half-heartedly refuting
the same in footnotes,) — even he says, "Were they (the
calumnies) true, or were they a malevolent lie ? Physio-
logical speculation will help but little. Lucrezia shewed all
signs of a clear conscience.'' Precisely. Then it is right
and reasonable to presume that this much-maligned lady
had a clear conscience ; and to surcease from shouting
any longer in the ordure which has been cast upon, and
falls from, her fair memory. Let the fact that Herr
Gregorovius, brilliant writer, painstaking scholar, German
Protestant, fierce and unscrupulous foe of the papacy and of
the House of Borgia, has destroyed all accusations against
Madonna Lucrezia, silence all suspicion. In his huge work,^
devoted entirely to her history he has shewn her to be the
victim of inventions due to the paid pens of her Father's

enemies.

# * #

It would be contrary to human nature, had Colonna and
Savelli meekly submitted to the confiscation of their fiefs.
Armed resistance was out of the question. The heads of
those Houses only saved their lives by flight into exile in
discontented Germany : but they were not left without one
weapon, the last refuge of the unscrupulous. The anony-
mous libellous pamphlet or epigram lay to their hands.

In the Region of Monti, (the largest district of Rome,
including three of the seven hills, Ouirinal, Esquiline,
Caelian,) which was inhabited by the faction of Colonna,
there stood an antique statue of some river-god whom the

1 Gregorovius F., Lucrezia Borgia.
182

f.-^

^^..

.^"

* V

^z:^Zu^ci^'i/^ ^Ooi^^-cau ..::^U'C^^ik) c^ ,^Aei^tct'i^4!^.

The Roaring Blaze

Romans called Marforio. In the Region of Parione by
Piazza Navona, which was the heart of the mediaeval City,
near Palazzo Braschi, there stood another antique statue
whom the Romans called Pasquino and said that under him
the Book of VVisdom for all time was buried. And it was
the fashion to pretend that these two statues conversed on
current topics, emitting epigrams in the darkness of the
night, which were found in writing on their pedestals in the
morning. All persons who had an axe to grind at an
enemy's expense made use of this convention : and a folio
volume would not contain the witty caustic cynical pas-
quinades (ecce nomen,) which from the Fifteenth to the
Twentieth Century have been found at Pasquino and
Marforio. This method of spleen-splitting was not neglected
by Colonna and Savelli. Pasquino became loquacious,
bitter, oh and smart — but, smart ! One epigram may be
quoted as a specimen of the railing accusations brought
against the Holiness of the Pope by way of reflection on His
alleged simoniacal election, at times when He levied taxes
or forced loans for the Crusade, or gave no remission of the
chancery fees on promotion to fiefs and benefices.

"Alexander sells the Keys, the Altars, Christ.
" He bought them ; and He has the Right to Sell.

But the most virulent of all anonymous attacks, was a
pamphlet called A Letter to Silvio Savelli which pretended
to have come from the Spanish camp at Taranto. It pro-
claimed to the Elect- Emperor Maximilian and the sovereigns
of Europe the crimes which were said to have been com-
mitted by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Duke Cesare de
Valentinois and Madonna Lucrezia Borgia d'Este : perfidy,
carnage, rapine, adultery, incest, the heresy of Bulgaria,
simony, assassination. Men who have noticed the rabid
inconsequence, the grotesque impossibility and filthiness,
which characterises certain foreis!;n abuse of Engrland at the
present time, will understand the extent to which envious
rage will go. Men of the Twenty-fifth Century, who read
that degenerate literature, may attach to it an importance
as undeserved as that which the Twentieth Century attaches
to the Letter to Silvio Savelli of the Fifteenth. Humanity,

183

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

with slight external differences, is identical in all ages.
The Borgia were only men and women, boys and girls,
when all is said ; and the charges made against them are
infinitely too monstrously inhuman to be true. Nature
terribly would have avenged Herself on such infringements
of Her law.

The Lord Alexander P.P. VI read the Letter to Silvio
Savelli. It is recorded that His Holiness deigned heartily
to laugh with His courtiers over the exaggerated absurdity
of the satire. As for its coarseness — the Romans always
value siinplicitas and urbanitas oi speech, i.e., hideous gross-
ness and brutal jest. As for taking offence — well, Consul
Caius Julius Caesar laughed at the crabbed little couplet of
Caius Valerius Catullus, and invited him to supper ; and the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI had lived too many years in Italy not
to have taken the correct measure of Milanese, Florentines,
Venetians, Neapolitans ; and He was well able to appor-
tion its just value to extravagance of praise or to extrava-
gance of blame. With His magnificent dignity of temper,
He said that in Rome there was liberty of speech : and that
He cared nothing for libels against Himself. (Costabili to
Duke of Ferrara, i Feb. 1502). They amused Him, if
they were witty ; they pleased Him, if their language
shewed distinction : and that was all.

Duke Cesare de Valentinois was not of so gracious a
humour. Towards the end of November after the publica-
tion of the Letter to Silvio Savelli, a certain Messer Girolamo
Manciani, a Neapolitan, was taken in the Region of Borgo
on a charge of publishing calumnious epigrams against the
Duke which proved him to be the author of the famous
Letter. His right hand and tongue were promptly cut off
and out. Two other defamers employed by the Aragonese
Dynasty (as Pontano had been, and Sannazar " the Christian
Vergil" was) to flout the Borgia underwent a similar muti-
lation ; and when the Orator of Ferrara spoke of them to
the Pope, it is said that He answered, " What can We do ?
The Duke means well ; but he does not know how to bear
insults. We often have advised him to follow Our ensample,
and to let the mob say what it will : but he answered Us
with choler that he intended to give those scribblers a lesson

The Roaring Blaze

in good manners." The good heart of the Pope spoke
there. The Duke was only carrying out the law by this
severity ; laws, which it would ill-become the Lawgiver to
set aside. Still, the offence being against the person of
that Lawgiver, it was open to Him privately to recommend
leniency : and that He did. No man could do more.
* * *

Florence, having cast off the despotic rule of the House
of Medici, and setded herself as a true republic, was at peace
with the Holy See. After the capitulation of Faenza Duke
Cesare de Valentinois was created Duke of the Romagna.
King Don Federigo of Naples, apprehensive of danger
from the alliance of the Papacy and France set abroad the
rumour that the Duke intended to conquer Florence and
add it to the pontifical state ; and, to curry favour with the
Holiness of the Pope, he suggested that Tuscany should
be erected into a kingdom, with Duke Cesare de Valentinois
della Romagna as its crowned king. This attempt to
deflect the wave of conquest into North Italy, and away
from his own dominions, met with no success. If Duke
Cesare ever had entertained the notion of proceeding
against Tuscany, he made no efforts whatever in that
direction. On the contrary, it was the Regno that was the
object of attention. Chance after chance had been given,
alliances diplomatic and matrimonial had been made with it :
but it continued to be as a thorn in the eye of the papacy,
its sovereigns vicious, treacherous, its people dangerous,
degenerate. It was cankered to the core; and its time was
come. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI signed a treaty with
the Christian and Catholic Kings of France and Spain for
the division of Naples. The three signatories each had a
claim of sorts : the Pope's Holiness as suzerain of certain
fiefs and tyrannies, such as Benevento and Tarracina ; the
Christian King Louis XII as representative of the Angevin
dynasty ; the Catholic King Don Hernando as legitimate
head of the House of Aragon. And incontinently King
Don Federigo de Aragona fled into exile, while his kingdom
was divided and given to France and Spain.

In 1502 the plans of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI for
the defence of Christendom met with success and rebuff.

185

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

The Elect- Emperor Maximilian sulkily withdrew his pro-
hibition ; and Cardinal Raymond Perauld, as Papal Legate,
passed through the Empire preaching the Crusade. But
Hungary played traitor to the League which she had formed
with Venice and the Papacy a year before ; and the Majesty
of England, King Henry VII Tudor, refused to help. The
last perhaps may be explained by the uneasy condition
which the realm owed to rebellions fomented by Burgundy
for the affliction of the House of Tudor — those of Lambert
Simnel in 1487 and Duke Richard Plantagenet of York
(vulgarly called Perkyn Werbecke) in 1494-1499.

The movement in the direction of ecclesiastical reform
slowly progressed. Germany was still reiterating the cry
which, as long ago as the reign of the Lord Calixtus P.P. HI,
she had raised anent the extortions of the Papal Chancery ;
and not by any means without some reason. But then, as
now, the cry for reform arose from tainted sources. It was
not genuine, or sincere ; but only a species of blackmail.
However the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was willing enough
and he gave the idea due consideration, by the advice of
Cardinal Francesco de' Piccolhuomini. But, remembering
that this Most Illustrious Lord was a nephew of the Lord
Pius P.P. II (who, in His earlier years, had assisted at the
Council of Basilea) ; and had the reputation of being a
" concilionista," i.e., one whose remedy for ecclesiastical ills
is not a Pope, but a Council ; the Supreme Pontiff resolved
to delay, until that He should see His way more clearly.
In a sense the Pope's Holiness deceived Himself; for
Cardinal Francesco de' Piccolhuomini (who succeeded Him
as the Lord Pius P.P. Ill) was, as Caesar's wife was not,
"above suspicion." In ordinary matters, when suitable
advice is not forthcoming, a Pope is liable to hesitate. Of
course, in matters of teaching, His position is secure ; but,
as has been said, in worldly affairs the Pope-well-advised
is superior to the Pope-ill-advised. Seeing no present
method of securing permanent reform, the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI waited. The fruit was not ripe. The psychological
moment had not come. It was well to wait ; and to let the
movement shape itself : for, later, when the hour of reform
sounded there arose the majestic Council of Trent. To

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the Borgia the world greatly owes the Tridentine Decrees —
decrees that govern the Church at this day.

# * #

In this year 1502, Duke Cesare de Valentinois della
Romagna escorted the Lord Alexander P.P. VI to Piombino
when he made a state-progress through the conquered states ;
shewing Him that from that city He could threaten the
Republics of Venice, Siena, and Florence, with the tyrannies
of Bologna and Ravenna, the last with its interminable feud
of the Sforza and the Pasolini dell' Onda,^ The chief
independent states paid tribute to him. By hideous
treachery, he captured the duchies of Urbino and Camerino,
drove the Duke into exile, proclaimed an amnesty, and
observed it against his worst enemies : but he hanged all
those who betrayed to him, loving the treachery, hating the
traitors."^ The duchy of Camerino w^as conferred upon
the four-year-old Duke Giovanni Borgia of Nepi and
Camerino.

The Christian King Louis XII had a spasm of envy
this year, in consequence of Duke Cesare's phenomenal
triumphs ; and shewed some signs of interrupting the policy
of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI with cries for a General
Council. A model of his, bearing his effigy with the lilies of
France and the legend Pei'dam Babylonis Nomen, made a
great sensation in Rome.^ But French motives never are
disinterested. The moment another Power wins a success
by expenditure of blood and treasure, that is the time for
pretentious incompetent France, cane die abbaia non 7norde,
to clamour for a share of what she never won, never could
hope to win, — for what, with inconsequent impertinence,
she calls " compensation " ! The Holy Roman Church was
not worse off, under the rule of the Lord Alexander P. P. VI,
but better off than it had been before : but the election of
His Holiness was always useful as a means of blackmail.

^ The present writer once witnessed the reception, in all amity, by the
present Sforza, of the present Pasolini dell' Onda, who came peaceably to
gain information for his book in praise of Madonna Caterina Sforza- Riario. A
singular example of the old order changed and giving place to new.

2 " Per dar ad intender a tutti che '1 Signor over Signori hanno appiacer
" del tradimento, ma non del traditore." Priuli. xxvi. July 1502.

3 Costabili to Duke of Ferrara. Rome, xi. Aug. 1502.

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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

However, Duke Cesare was Generalissimo of an enormous
army. In addition to the four thousand condottieri and
three hundred lancers with which he had begun the
campaign, he had enlisted the many thousand mercenaries
of the Tyrants whom he had dispossessed, and also recruited
far and wide throughout Italy, where all the temperamental
fighters gladly took service under the most successful
general. And to these he added a foreign battalion of
three thousand five hundred fantassini (infantry), pikemen
and arbalisters, all Frenchmen, of whose quality the Christian
King was well aware ; and, therefore, sensible enough to
refrain himself before a worse thing happened to him.
Indeed, such was his anxiety to give evidence of his desire
for peace that he actually offered, — he, the Christian King of
France, the representative of the Angevin dynasty, offered
to resign his claim to the kingdom of Naples in favour of
Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna. He was pain-
fully anxious not to purchase a General Council at the cost
of the conquest of France ; and preferred that a Borgia
sovereign, (if such a personage were to be,) should reign in
Naples rather than in Paris.

The Romagna immensely was benefited by a strong
and decent government where law — martial law, certainly ;
but law — at last was observed. Duke Cesare's army was
the only great Italian army. He, representing the Pope,
was absolute in Central Italy, where no Pope had had direct
authority for centuries. He was hated ; hated by the
great baronial Houses which he had ruined, whose heirs
he had slain : but he was not even disliked by the people
whom he ruled. ^ It was not extraordinary; for the mob
always adores the strong bowelless man, the rigid fearless
despot, the conquering autocrat who brings peace with
security. He took no different measures against rebellious
vassals than those taken by his contemporaries, Louis XII
of France, Hernando of Spain, Henry VII Tudor of
England. He was more precise, more systematic : that is
all. All the sovereigns who were his contemporaries con-

1 " Aveva il duca gittate assai buoni fondamenti alia potenza sua, avendo
"tutta la Romagna con il ducato d' Urbino, e guadagnatosi tutti quei populi,
"per avere incomminciato a gustare il ben essere loro." (Machiavelli. II
Principe. Op. i. 35.)

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gratulated him. The Duke was cruel ; almost as cruel as
his splendid parallel of the Nineteenth Century ; and as
fervently disliked and decried : but he was just, with a
justice as far above the mawkish humanitarian system of
compromise, (which, nowadays it is the mode to applaud,)
as the sun is above the stars. Through the length and
breadth of his dominions he continually went, to oversee
the restoration of order, to consolidate his victories. The
slightest spark of opposition he relentlessly crushed out. It
was a hundred-headed hydra with which he had to deal.
As he passed from city to city of his provinces, he left
governours in charge of each, bloody men, ruthless giants,
equal to the work in hand ; for the work was dangerous ;
and men, whose hearts were triply-cased in hardened
bronze, were needed, where each man's life was in his own
hands until it was in his enemy's. Messer Lionardo da
Vinci, that "scientific sceptic," was his engineer in chief
and designer of fortifications : and Messer Niccolo Machia-
velli said that, of all Princes, he could discover no ensample
more blooming" and more vigrorous than Duke Cesare. The
headquarters of the Duke were at Cesena ; and that same
Messer Niccolo Machiavelli — the only man who ever knew
the real Cesare (detto Borgia) naked face to naked face,
naked soul to naked soul, — advised the Signoria of Florence
that an Orator kept at Cesena would profit the republic
more than an Orator at Rome.^ In his absences from head-
quarters, Duke Cesare left Messer Ramiro d'Orco there as
governor. Cesena was a nest of would-be brigands. Messer
Ramiro d'Orco was a governor who made these quail with
the steel of his g-arrison and his own iron will.

It was the winter of 1502. Snow lay deeply round
Cesena. In the Citadel the governor was at supper by the
hearth, where huge logs blazed and crackled. Halberdiers
were standing in attendance ; and, on the walls wax torches
flamed in their sockets, for the sun was set and the first
hour of the night was come. Messer Ramiro d'Orco called

1 " Se ne ha contentare cestui, e non il Papa, e per questo le cose che si
"concludessino del Papa possono bene essere ritrattate da costui, ma quelle
" che si concludessino da costui non saranno gia ritrattate dal Papa." (Dis-
patch from Cesena xiv. Dec. 1502.)

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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

for wine ; and a page brought a fresh flagon from the buffet.
He stumbled among the rushes on the floor in coming,
tripped over the feet of a guard ; and the falling flagon
spilled the wine on the ankle of Messer Ramiro d'Orco.
That monster made no more ado. He took the lad by the
belt, and slung him into the fire, seizing the nearest halberd
and pinning the twitching body to the flaming logs. The
hair, in a flash, was gone. The slim legs violently writhed
outward, and fell still. Hose and leathern jerkin peeled,
and the white flesh hissed and blackened. Then, naught
but small ash showed where a boy had died ; and the smell
of roasted human flesh mingled with the smell of the meats.
Again, Messer Ramiro d'Orco called for wine, unmoved,
only inconvenienced. He was the governor of Cesena :
he had but punished a clumsy serving-boy.

That is the kind of man who could rule in the Romagna :
and it easily will be understood that acting in this way,
armed with plenipotentiary authority, Messer Ramiro
d'Orco froze his district into a state of comparative tran-
quillity— a state which gave him the opportunity of looking
further afield, and, so it happened, fatally for himself A
very little cruelty of this callosity goes far. Even truculent
Cesena grew faint with horror of this fiend.

Duke Cesare acted upon the principle that it is better to
be feared than loved — if one 7nttst choose : but he knew that
there is a point beyond which no wise ruler goes : he knew
the supreme art of making an end. Murmured rumours of
atrocities reached his ears. Sooner or later he would have
to bear the odium of the ill-deeds of his deputy. He never
shirked responsibility. To shine in the reflected glare of
Messer Ramiro d'Orco's evil fame would not suit his
purpose. And there were other things.

On the twenty-second of December, when the setting
sun cast long blood-red lights across the snow, without
warnino- Duke Cesare gallopped into Cesena with an armed
escort of lancers. The cowed Cesenesi, turning out of
doors to do him reverence, caught bare glimpses of flashing
mail and the bull-bannerols of Borgia passing over the
drawbridge of the citadel. Presently, from that citadel
came Messer Cipriano di Numai, the Duke's secretary, to

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the house of Messer Domenico d'UgolinI, the treasurer;
seeking the governor in the city. Messer Ramiro d'Orco
was arrested, and conducted to the presence of his chief

Surmise that night was rife as to the import of these
acts. New venofeance ? New taxes ? New horror? None
could say.

The next morning, letters-patent went to all cities of the
Romagna proclaiming that Duke Cesare had arrested his
governor Messer Ramiro d'Orco, on the charge of number-
less frauds, illegal cruelties, and other crimes. The plaints
of the oppressed had grieved the Duke, natural enemy of
exaction, avarice, and cruelty, who, having freed the citizens
from the ancient terror, wished to impose no new charges on
them. The letters-patent concluded,

" for the doing of justice to Ourself and to all persons who
"have been injured, and for a salutary example to all Our
" servants present and future, Messer Ramiro d'Orco will
"stand his trial on depositions against him collected.

The trial was not a long one. Legally put to the Torture
of the Question, that frightful ruffian admitted the truth of
the said depositions ; and, chiefly he accused himself of
having sold the store of corn belonging to the province,
applying the price to his own purposes, to such an extent
that Duke Cesare only averted a famine by importing a
fresh supply from foreign countries. Lastly, Messer Ramiro
d'Orco confessed that he was conspiring with the Orsini to
betray to them the city of Cesena ; and with Don Vitellozzo
Vitelli, Tyrant of Citta di Castello, and Don Oliverotto da
Fermo, to pose an arbalister ^ to assassinate Duke Cesare
with a bolt from his arbalist.^ Citizens of Cesena who
passed the liitle square before the citadel, going to the
dawn-mass of Christmas-Day, saw a joyful sight — the
Justice of the Duke. They saw a glittering axe, fixed in a
block upon the snow. They saw on the one side a headless
body in rich garments, exposed on a blood-stained mat
upon the snow. They saw on the other side the bodiless
head of Messer Ramiro d'Orco on a pike.

All chroniclers of the period congratulate Duke Cesare

^ Arcuballistarius = cross-bow-man.
^ Arcuballista=: cross-bow,
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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

on having delivered his subjects from a tyrannous subaltern
as cruel as he was rapacious; and Machiavelli records that
His Excellency was pleased to shew that he had the power
to make men — and to mar them. Duke Cesare in teaching
made use of the sense of sight. He made the peoples of
the Romagna see his power, see his justice, see his ever-
present indefatigable energy. What wonder then that he
was looked upon as superhuman. In the citadel of Cesena
a milder (governor reigned.

Leaving Cesena on the Festival of St. Stephen, Duke
Cesare reached Pesaro on the twenty-eighth of December,
where he learned that the conspirators whom Messer
Ramiro d'Orco had betrayed, (except the Baglioni of Perugia,
and Don Giulio and Don Giovanni Orsini who were in
Rome with Cardinal Giambattista Orsini and other prelates
of their faction) were at Sinigaglia, which place they were
supposed to be besieging on the Duke's behalf; and they
sent to him to announce that they had captured the city,
but that the governor refused to surrender the citadel save
to the Generalissimo in person. Duke Cesare sent avant
couriers heralding his arrival with artillery.

At dawn on the Festival of St. Sylvester, the thirty-
first of December, he appeared before Sinigaglia. His
trusty confidant and captain Don Michelotto led the van
with two hundred lancers. Behind these Duke Cesare
rode, accompanied by three and a half thousand Italian
condottieri and as many foreigners. At the city-gate, Don
Michelotto halted his cavalry on the bridge, and the infantry
defiled between their ranks, entering the city where the
forces of Don Oliverotto da Fermo were paraded. Don
Paolo and Don Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, also
were present, with Don Vitellozzo Vitelli who wore an
ermine mantle and rode a mule like any cardinal. Duke
Cesare appeared to be pleased at seeing them and allowed
them to kiss his hand in the French style. The atrocious
character of these brigands already has been described.

Duke Cesare engaged them in conversation, siding with
Don Francesco Orsini and Don Vitellozzo Vitelli. When
they reached the palace which he was to occupy, the four
prepared to take their leave ; but he begged them to stay

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and dine, and to assist him in certain deliberations. As
soon as they had crossed the threshold, the Duke's gentle-
men made them prisoners.

Messer Niccolo Machiavelli, the official representative
of the Signoria of Florence on the staff of Duke Cesare,
(a capacity equivalent to that of foreign attache with an
army in the field,) reached Sinigaglia later in the day ; and
found the city filled with the Ducal mercenaries, who were
engaged in stripping the troops of the conspirators and in
doing a little pillage of some Venetian merchants. He
was going to the palace to get the news, when Duke
Cesare. rode out, armed cap-a-pie, and said to him, " I
have had a chance, and I have taken it ; and I have
done a service that should cause your Signoria to
rejoice." Then he rode away and reduced his turbulent
troops to order.

During the night the fate of the conspirators was decided.
In deference to their rank, the two Orsini were to be sent
to Rome and judged there according to law : meanwhile
they were detained at the palace of Sinigaglia under guard.
The trial of the others began at once. Put to the Torture
of the Question in the usual manner, they soon shewed of
what poor stuff they were made. The lily-livered assassin
Don Oliverotto da Fermo wept and groaned and reproached
Don Vitellozzo Vitelli with having led him — innocent lamb
as he was — into mischief by inducing him to intrigue against
Duke Cesare. On the first day of the new year 1503, at
four o'clock in the morning, they were ceremonially strangled
in the courtyard of the palace. While Don Vitellozzo was
struggling with the carnefex, dying by slow degrees, with
blackening face and bulging eyes, he screamed continually
to Duke Cesare begging hard that he would implore the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI to grant him absolution after
death and a plenary indulgence, until the red cord (which
was his baronial privilege) cut into his gullet, and stilled
his swollen tongue.

An ensample of this kind can leave no doubt in the mind
but that, in spite of all to the contrary, the Pontifex Maximus
of Rome, simoniacally elected or not, implicitly and explicitly
was regarded then as God's Vicegerent, as Earthly Vicar

193 N

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

of Christ, by the most flagitious of men. Then what can
be thought of the good and clean-living majority ?

The bodies were buried in the chapel of the hospice of
the Misericordia, the Brotherhood of Pity, one of whose
obligations is the care of criminals condemned on the capital
charge.

This account of the colpo-di-stato of Sinigaglia differs
from that to which the world is accustomed. It is said that,
when Messer Niccolo MachiavelH returned to Florence, he
was induced to make a different statement to the one which
he previously had made from personal observation in his
first dispatches. According to this second version, there
was no conspiracy ; and the brigands Vitelli and da Fermo
were simply massacred by order of Duke Cesare. It is the
execrable Messer Francesco Guicciardini who has prosti-
tuted his golden pen to record this so-called version of
Machiavelli, which has come to be regarded as veracious
history.

" Duke Cesare de Valentinois, acknowledged sovereign of the
Romagna, judged his subjects who were guilty of high treason : as chief
of the State, he condemned the assassins who sought his life : as
generalissimo, he punished treacherous and rebellious subalterns. It is
known from other sources, that these two barons were only brigands
stained with murders, and that their death was a deliverance for Italy.
Without insisting on this point, and if it be said that the procedure of
Duke Cesare was odious, — the capture by a ruse and the summary
execution, — it may be pointed out that everywhere and in all ages
criminals are taken by whatever method may be possible, and that
military tribunals have never wasted time in long formalities. There was
accusation, trial, and execution, all in regular though rapid form. We
well may call the action of Duke Cesare a coup-d'-Etat. He is not more
blameworthy than the Emperor Napoleon III who in 1852 was loudly
applauded. Neither is it necessary for his justification to urge the
barbarous customs of his age ; for we should be forced to remember that,
in the Nineteenth Century, our (French) national hero, in a time of peace,
caused to be seized on foreign territory, to be carried to Vincennes, and,
after the mockery of a trial, to be shot like a dog in the castle-ditch, an
innocent man who was a prince of the blood-royal of France. [Due
d'Enghien?] Yet no man has ever dared to liken the Emperor Napoleon I
to a Borgia ! {Rene, Comte de Maricoioi.)

The news reached Rome on the night of the second of
January. The blow had been struck with such rapidity as to

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put complicity of the Lord Alexander beyond the dimen-
sions of time and space.

In the Eternal City, the year had opened with the
ceremony called L'Ubbedienza, in which the cardinals
renew their vow of fidelity to the Pope, as, formerly,
Roman Senators vowed fidelity to the Princeps on each
New Year's Day. A cardinal, who would omit this duty
except for a valid reason, would cause precisely such a
scandal as P. Thrasea Paetus caused to Tacitus by
neglecting to swear to Nero. Notwithstanding this
renewal of allegiance on the first of January, only three
days later the Pope's Holiness found reason to arrest
Cardinal Giambattista Orsini, with Archbishop Alviano
of Florence, and Don Giacomo Poplicola di Santacroce,
Orsini's partisans, being determined once for all to crush
that House of incorrigible rebels. This Don Giacomo
Poplicola di Santacroce had only himself to blame. His
House, the most illustrious of all the sixty conscript families
of Rome, had been outlawed in 1482 by the Lord Xystus
P.P. IV by reason of the furious feud between Santacroce
and Dellavalle which had turned the Eternal City for
months together into shambles. He should have known
better than to put his head in the lion's mouth. Giustiniani,
the Orator of Venice, received an account of what had
happened from the Pope's Own mobile lips ; and embodied
the same in a dispatch to his government dated the fourth
of January 1503. It appears to be perfectly loj^ical on the
part of the Pope's Holiness, that, in view of the coming
trial of the two Orsini whom Duke Cesare was bringing to
Rome, evidence should be sought among the members of
their faction.

The behaviour of Orsini was impolitic and suspicious to
the last degree. They were under the shadow. Two of
their alleged accomplices had been executed at Sinigaglia.
The cardinal was detained in the Mola of Hadrian. Don
Paolo Orsini and Duke Francesco Orsini of Gravina were
prisoners of Duke Cesare. Their circumstances required
a patient policy of inaction pending coming trial, the result
of which they needed not to fear supposing them to be
innocent of conspiracy. On the contrary, they gave clear

195

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

evidence of guilt, desperately maintaining an armed re-
bellion in pontifical territory, ravaging the Viterbo country,
and continuing- to make leagues with other rebels whether
these were Roman barons or chiefs of independent
banditti.

The Orator of Venice wrote to his government on the
seventeenth of January : "The Pontiff is much disturbed,
and more than ever on his guard. They say that
Colonna and Savelli and all the discontented barons
have joined Orsini. This night there was a panic at the
Vatican : no one knows the cause. The captain of the
guard called out his troops and watched all night under
arms."

Prince Gioffredo Borgia of Squillace, now in his twenty-
second year and father of four children, raised a squadron
of condottieri and attacked his August Father's enemies :
but on the night of the twentieth of January, the Orsini
cavalry captured the Bridge of Nomentano where a fortress
was ; and all the Bororo rose in tumult. Messer Francesco
Remolino Bishop of Sorrento, and the Orator of Siena,
left the City for the camp of Duke Cesare carrying orders
that he should leave everything and advance on Rome,
which was in imminent peril. But before the envoys
reached him, on the night of the seventeenth of January,
at Citta di Pieve he suddenly had beheaded Don Paolo
Orsini and Duke Francesco Orsini of Gravina, the two
prisoners to whom he had promised a legal trial in Rome.
The attitude of Orsini perfectly justified Duke Cesare in
exercising his rights as sovereign justiciary and breaking
his promise. His camp was surrounded by Orsini castles,
the two barons undoubtedly were caught in the article of
conspiracy ; and their summary decapitation became a
sudden necessity to intimidate the Orsini conspirators in
and about Rome. It was not the custom of the Sixteenth
Century to mince matters, from any silly humanitarian
motives, by sacrificing thousands of proletariat lives when
the fierce slaughter of a brace of notabilities would serve
the purpose. The modern accusation, that the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI was privy to the execution of these
two Orsini, falls to the ground when the dates of His

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dispatches to Duke Cesare, and of their deaths, are com-
pared.

Cardinal Giambattista Orsini remained a state-prisoner
in the Mola of Hadrian, within whose walls he had full
liberty. By his own request, his food was sent in daily
from his own House ; and also he received visits from his
relations. There he lived, attended by his own physi-
cians, until the twenty-second of February when he died,
and was buried in the church of San Salvatore in Lauro.
Soon it was said that the Pope's Holiness had envenomed
him ; and this is a charge which it is utterly difficult to
prove.

Giustiniani, the Orator of Venice, who was a friend of
the House of Orsini, and always inimical to the Borgia,
said without explanation or remark in a dispatch to his
government dated the fifteenth of February : " The Lord
Cardinal Orsini in prison shews signs of frenzy."

In the dispatch dated the twenty-second of February,
he said : " The Lord Cardinal Orsini is reduced to the
last extremity, and his physicians say that there is no hope
of saving his life."

In the dispatch dated the twenty-third of February, he
said : " I give notice that, yesterday, after the departure of
my courier, the Lord Cardinal Orsini died ; and this
evening, with an honourable escort, he was taken to the
church of San Salvatore, and there interred."

Brancatalini, in his Diarium, wrote: "This day XXII
February 1503, Cardinal Orsini left the Castle of San-
tangelo dead, at a half-hour of the night ; (5.30-6 p.m.)
and Mariano di Stefano with many other Romans accom-
panied him ; and he was borne to San Salvatore m
Lauro''

Soderini, Orator of the Signoria of Florence, in a
dispatch dated the twenty-third of February 1 503 wrote to
his government :

" Cardinal Orsini died yesterday : and was buried at the twenty-fourth
hour (5-5.30 P.M.) at San Salvatore the church of the House of Orsini ;
and, by order of the Pope, the body was escorted by his relations, and by
the cardinals of the Curia, uncovered and resting on a bier draped with
cloth-of-gold, vested in a red chasuble brocaded with golden flowers, on

197

chronicles of the House of Borgia

the head was a white mitrej and at the feet were two hats in token of his
cardinalitial rank. The monks performed the funeral service; and there
were about sixty or seventy hghted torches. May he rest in peace."

Obviously, the Orators of the Powers had no suspicion
of venom. Giustiniani gladly would have reported such a
rumour had he found himself in a position to do so which
would have been consistent with his dignity and duty to the
Venetian Senate. When He heard what His enemies were
saying, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI took prompt action.
On the day after the obsequies He convoked the physicians
who had attended the dead Cardinal during his illness and
agony ; and required them to certify that death was owed
to natural causes without any violence due to venom or
other means ; He made them swear on the Sacrament to
the truth of their depositions, which were recorded with the
facts of the case in the usual form.

It was customary to consider certain signs as indicating
venom ; e.g., the spots, the colour, the odour of the corpse.
There is no mention made of these. The Pope's Holiness
ordered a public funeral, the body was uncovered ; and
carried openly through Rome. Every one might see
it ; and, had the Orsini faction discovered any signs
which pointed to an unnatural death, they surely would
have proclaimed their suspicions. The interment on the
day after death was, and is, the wholesome Roman
custom. The hour, after sunset, was, and is, the hour of
burial.

It has been said by modern idealists that the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI envenomed Cardinal Orsini in order to
inherit his riches. The idea is absurd and ridiculous ; for
the Orsini would have been the heirs of their dead kinsman.
In fact they were. The imputation discredits itself by
reason of the gross ignorance on which it is based. It is
alleged that the Pope is the heir-at-law of cardinals. He
is. But He was not, in the reign of the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI. It was the Lord Julius P.P. II (1503-15 13) who
cupidinously issued the Bull which names the Roman Pontiff
heir-at-law of all cardinals, and of all clergy dying in Rome ;
and this Pope (as Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere) was
no friend to Borgia. And this fact ought to dispose of

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all allegations of cupidinal motive in this, as in other
cases.

The Lord Alexander P.P. VI had the Orsini at His
mercy. Duke Cesare had executed two chiefs of that
House. The Cardinal was secure in the impregnable Mola
of Hadrian. If the Pope's Holiness had wished to rid
Himself of this one He was quite strong enough to do so,
without resort to venom, by a regular execution in public,
or in private if preferred, and so defy the odium which
inevitably attends the exhibition of venom. But that He
had no intention of visiting His prisoners with death, or
with anything more than incarceration to keep them out of
mischief, may be seen from the fact that a few months later
(August 1 503) Archbishop Alviano of Florence was released
alive and well from the Mola of Hadrian.

As there appears to have been no motive and no
necessity for the alleged crime, so also there appears to
have been no possibility of its commission. Cardinal
Giambattista Orsini was visited daily by his people, and
his food was brought to him by them. His physicians also
made deposition on oath that his death was not caused by
venom.

It is only reasonable to conjecture, then, that being a
very old man, conscius cri?ninis sui (conspiracy), alarmed by
the execution of his accomplices, terrified at his own peril, he
succumbed to an entirely natural collapse. The dysentery,
which carried him off, goes to support this theory,

u^ ^ 4t,

•Tt" -TV* TP

The French in the Regno were not prospering ; and
the favour of the papacy appeared to be leaning towards
Spain. The Crusade languished, not for lack of funds (for
the Pope's Holiness envoyed a grant of money to Hungary) ;
but because of the want of martial spirit on the part of, and
the customary disgraceful dissensions among the Christian
Powers. Venice and Hungary threw up the sponge, and
came to terms with the Muslim Infidel. The conquest of
Eastern Europe and the settlement of the Turks therein
was an accomplished fact.

# * *

199

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna occupied
Pesaro, This was the fief of that young Tyrant, Don
Giovanni Sforza, whose marriage with Madonna Lucrezia
Borgia had been annulled by a canonical impediment. The
spoliation of his appanage was a ground of fresh offence.
The rupture between the Houses of Borgia and Sforza
was irremediable. People spoke of Duke Cesare, now, as
the Caesar Augustus of a new Roman Empire, independent,
and ruled by the sceptre of a Princeps of the House of
Borgia. After the execution of the conspirators at Sini-
gaglia, the Venetian chronicler Priuli, who loathed the very
name of Borgia, wrote on the eleventh of January 1503 :
" Some wish to make and crown him King of Italy ;
others wish to make him Emperor : for he prospers so
that no one dare forbid him anything."^

The establishment of a Borgia Dynasty would have
been no treason against the rights of the Papacy. The
rebellious tyrants whom Duke Cesare had overthrown were
unprofitable and even menacing. In their place was the
Duke who brought law, order, and prosperity. Of course
Duke Cesare derived benefit from his victories. The
labourer is worthy of his hire, and even successful English
generals are not begrudged their peerages. Duke Cesare's
duchy of Romagna, his commanding position, his power
to enrich himself by the taxation of his subjects, were a fair
reward for the immense services which he had rendered.
The Papacy had now, instead of a lost territory infested by
the scum of European ruffianry refusing to acknowledge
authority or natural law, a vast province inhabited by law-
abiding prosperous contented vassals ready and glad to pay
the traditional tribute to their over-lord, in return for the
unwonted safety of their lives and property. Duke Cesare
was in the position of a viceroy. He held office at the
pleasure of the Roman Pontiff. He was persona ingrata
to the rulers of the other Italian states, who were envious
of his splendid beauty, of his imperious character, of his
extraordinary success, and of his tremendous potentiality.

1 " Alcuni lo volevano far Re d' Italia, e coronarlo, altri lo volevano fa
Imperatore, perche '1 prosperava talmente, che non era alcuno li bastasse
rauimo d'impedirlo in cosa alcuna." (xi Jan. 1503.)

200

The Roaring Blaze

And they feared this tawny prince who had the tiger-
strength to crush them one and all. Backed by the spiritual
and temporal influence and wealth of the Pontiff, he could
keep his irresistible army of veterans always on a war-
footing, and himself its generalissimo ; and so the Papacy
itself acquired, through him, and in him, and for the first
time, a material basis of independence : while, in opposition
to the Pope, he could not exist.

There was the policy of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.

He planned it with deliberation. He spared no pains
to put it into effect. He did not want to ruin the Church,
because She was the foundation upon which He would
build His dynasty. Something of the kind was of absolute
and imperious necessity. The Forged Decretals and
Donation of Constantine, (which foist had been put forth
in a Brief of the Lord Hadrian P.P. I to the Emperor
Charlemagne,) "the magic pillars of the spiritual and
temporal monarchy of the Popes," severely had been
criticized as early as the Twelfth Century. It was left,
however, to Messer Lorenzo della Valla mercilessly to
denounce them as forgeries in 1440, as already has been
shewn here. When the Lord Alexander P.P. VI ascended
the pontifical throne fifty-two years later, both Decretals
and Donation had been thrown overboard from the Barque
of Peter, to lighten the ship : and the Pope had no title-
deeds to shew, forged or otherwise, for Peter's Patrimony.
Any diplomatist would see that a right, of some kind more
inexpugnable than Prescription, was desirable. The Lord
Alexander P.P. VI chose Conquest, and the Founding
of a Borgia Dynasty. The office of the Church He
magnified, that She the better might help the state. He
intended that His descendants, members of the House
of Borgia, though nominally the vassals should be the
suzerains of His Successors : that Borgia should wear the
double-crown of Princeps, as well as, and by means of
the triple-crown of Pontifex Maximus, — that a dynasty
of Borgia should occupy both pontifical and imperial
thrones.

There was ruin in the scheme : but not that ruin which
vulgarly might be supposed.

201

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

It was an intelligent enough policy — of a worldly sort.
Only — it was not inspired by religion, nor restrained by
morality. When it fell to pieces, the Lord Julius P.P. II
was able of its fragments alone to build the Papal States
which lasted more than three centuries and a half until
1870.

The power of the House of Borgia was so well founded
that the mere death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI would
not have affected it. There was a strong party of Spanish
cardinals in the Sacred College, and three of these were of
the House of Borgia. The Vices:erent of Rome, the Lord
Jaime Serra, Cardinal-Priest of the Title of San Vitale, was
a Spaniard also. The Roman barons, Colonna, Orsini,
Savelli, Dellavalle were broken ; Poplicola di Santacroce
outlawed ; Sforza-Visconti of Milan, Sforza of Santafiora,
Sforza of Chotionuola, Sforza of Pesaro, Sforza-Riario of
Imola and Forli, all were exiled. The Roman Cesarini
were loyal to Borgia, and had their Cardinal (Giuliano) in
the Curia. Spain was friendly, and occupied in the New
World. France was friendly, and feeble. Germany was
feeble and internally distracted. England was only a fifth-
rate power. And the invincible army of Duke Cesare de
Valentinois della Romagna was ready to carry into effect
its leader's will. But chance, molecules, Providence,— the
reader will choose, — disabled Duke Cesare, made him unable
to act, or unwilling to act,^ — the reader again will choose, —
at the very moment when his action was imperatively
necessary. If, on the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
he had had his health, he easily might have done anything,
said Machiavelli.^

" The Worldly Hope Men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes — or it prospers ; and, anon,

Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
Lighting a little Hour or two — is gone.^

^ 'VV' "TV*

At the Ninth Consistory of the thirtieth (or thirty-first)
of May (or June) 1503, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI named

^ " Se nella morte di Alessandro fusse state sano, ogni cosa gli era facile."
(Machievelli, Principe, Op. I. 39.)

2 Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khaiyam, xvi.

202

The Roaring Blaze

nine cardinals ; five of whom were Spaniards, three Italians,
and one German. They were :

(a) the Lord Don Juan de Castellar, Bishop of Oleron ;

Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of Santa Maria in

Trastevere tit. Calixtiis :
(j3) the Lord Don Francisco Remolino, Bishop of

Sorrento, a friend of Duke Cesare ; Cardinal-
Presbyter of the Title of San Giovanni e San

Paolo :
(y) the Lord Don Francisco de Sprata, Bishop of Leon ;

Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Sergio e San

Bacco :
(g) the Lord Francesco Soderini da Volterra, Canon of

the Vatican Basilica ; Cardinal-Presbyter of the

Title of Santa Susanna inter Duas Domos :
(e) the Lord Niccolo da Flisco, Bishop of Forli,

Orator of the Republic of Genoa to the Christian

King ; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa

Prisca :
{P) the Lord Adriano Castellense di Corneto, Orator of

the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII to Britannia Barbara

(Scotland) ; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San

Crisogono :
(r?) the Lord Melchior Copis, Bishop of Brixen ;

Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Niccolo

inter Imagines :
(0) the Lord Don Jaime Casanova, Apostolic Protho-

notary ; Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San

Stefano in Monte Celio :
{i) the Lord Don Francisco Iloris, Apostolic Treasurer,

Cardinal- Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova.

Why a learned Catholic historian ^ should go out of his
way to call this a simoniacal creation, and his English
editor to repeat the calumny, is hard to say. It is bad
policy to cry stinking fish, at all times ; it is especially silly
to do so when the fish are fresh. The Bull De Siiuoniaca
£/ectione directed against Simony was not issued until 1505,

1 Pastor L. History of the Popes, edited by Fr. Frederick Antrobus of the
Oratory.

203

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

in the reign of the Lord Julius P.P. II ; and it was not
retrospective. In 1503, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was
actually a temporal sovereign, "an Italian Despot with
certain sacerdotal additions." The cardinals were the
highest degree of His peerage. No doubt they paid for
their promotion in the usual way ; fees to officials, the
crusade-tax on the revenues of their Titles, perhaps even a
handsome contribution to the Treasury : but why call this
Simony, when it was not Simony stride dicte till two years
later? A Red Hat no more can be bought than Strawberry
Leaves. A man may use his gold to recommend himself
for these head-gears. A man may present ^25,000 to the
best of all princesses' Hospital Fund, or land worth a
quarter of a million to the proletariat; he may "bang a
saxpence " in fees to officials for his knighthood, he even
may pay pounds sterling in fees to officials for his barony :
but he righteously would be enraged if people said that he
had bought his knighthood or his barony. The word
Simony must be taken as belonging to the Genus Blessed,
{e.g., Mesopotamia ;) or as the bark of a dog who dare not
bite. Either it is a mere incantation ; or a war-whoop
"full of sound and fury signifying nothing." In sober
logical earnest, it is inapplicable here.

yff ^j^ "Sf^

As the heat of summer increased, the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI, now of the age of seventy-two years, used to sit
and take the air in the shady gardens of the Vatican, and
amuse Himself by watching two little boys at play. They
were His bastard and his grandson ; Duke Giovanni Borgia
of Nepi and Camerino, of the age of five years ; and Duke
Roderico of Sermoneta, Madonna Lucrezia's son, of the age
of four years.

'Jr TV*

When the sun entered the constellation of Leo — Sol in
Leone, the dog-days — the heat became abnormal ; and
plague and fevers appeared in Rome.^ The Orators of the

1 A comical side-light on this naive age is given in the Annales Bononiensis,
(Muratori xxiii. 8go) on the occasion of an outbreak of plague. Penitence,
fasting, and flagellation were resorted to. Butchers closed their shops for

204

The Roaring Blaze

Powers promptly made arrangements to quit the City, for
a cool and wholesome villegiatura.

Don Antonio Giustiniani, the Orator of Venice, sent to
his Senate a dispatch dated the eleventh of July 1503, in
which he wrote : "I went to the palace ; and, on entering
His apartment, I found our Lord the Pope in His habits
reclinino^ on a couch. He received me with good
humour, saying that for three days He had been incon-
venienced by a slight dysentery, but that He hoped it
would be unimportant."

On the next day Giustiniani wrote : " The Pope's
Holiness reviewed His troops from a balcony."

On the fourteenth of July, he wrote again : " I went to
the palace; and, on entering, I found His Holiness on
His throne in the Hall of Pontiffs. He was a little de-
pressed : but looked well."

Messer Francesco Fortucci, the Orator of Florence,
sent to his Signoria a dispatch dated the twentieth of July,
in which he wrote : " There are many people sick of fevers,
and many have died."

On the twenty-second of July, he wrote : " I thank the
Signoria for leave of absence, because I myself am
uneasy, and almost out of my mind with fright ; for so
many people are dying of fever, and there is also some-
thing like the Pest."

On the evening of the fifth of August, the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI rode with Duke Cesare and several
prelates to a supper al fresco at the villa of the Cardinal
of San Crisogono outside the walls. Rome and the sur-
rounding country are particularly unwholesome, though
cool, during the hour after sunset. It is said that the Holi-
ness of the Pope was much heated by the exertion of riding
there; and that, while He was in this condition. He drank
a cup of wine for the sake of coolness. No more hazardous
action can be imagined ; except on the part of one desiring
to court a malarial fever.

eight days. And, that sorrow for sin was not confined to respectable people
may be gathered from the fact that " meretrices ad concubita nullum admit-
tebant. Ex eis quadam quae cupiditate lucri adolescentem admiserat, depre-
heusd, aliae meretrices ita illius nates nudas corrigiis percusscrunt ut sanguineni
emitteres."

205

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Two days later, on the seventh of August, the Orator
Giustiniani wrote to his government : " I found the Pope
less cheerful and more dull than usual. He said to me
Sir Orator, all these sick people in Rome, all these daily
deaths, make Us fearful, and persuade Us to take more care
of Oiir person''

Monsignor Hans Burchard, the Caerimonarius, wrote
in his Diarium : " On the twelfth of August, after vespers,
between the twenty-first and twenty-second hour, (5-6 p.m.)
He (the Pope's Holiness) shewed signs of a fever which
does not abate."

It should be noted that this is seven days after the
garden-supper.

On the thirteenth of August, Giustiniani wrote to his
sovereign the Doge of Venice, that the Pope had vomited
after eating, and had been feverish all night ; that Duke
Cesare also was sick : and that no one was admitted to the
Vatican. He tells about the supper in the garden of the
Cardinal of San Crisogono ; and adds : " To-morrow
morning I will try to have precise information to send
to Your Sublimity."

These dispatches give an excellent idea of some of the
duties of a Sixteenth-Century ambassador, to hang about
doors of palaces, to chronicle performances of natural func-
tions, to bribe royal flunkeys and report their gossip in
state-dispatches.

On the fourteenth of August, the same Orator wrote
that the Pope had been phlebotomized, — "some speak of
fourteen, some of sixteen ounces : perhaps it will be true
to say ten ; and that is an enormous quantity for a man
of seventy-three years, which is the age of His Blessed-
ness."

(The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was born in 1431 ; and
was of the age of seventy-two years in 1503.)

" Still the fever does not abate. The Pope has it yet ;
though less violently than yesterday. To-day the Duke
is worse."

The same day, the fourteenth of August, Don Beltrando
Costabili, the Orator of Duke Ercole of Ferrara wrote at
some length, no doubt because Madonna Lucrezia Borgia,

206

The Roaring Blaze

the consort of Ferrara's heir, would expect detailed in-
formation when the health of her august and affectionate
Father was concerned. He said :

"Yesterday morning, I was informed on good authority that His
Holiness has commanded the attendance of the Bishop of Venosa who was
sick at home, and of another physician of the City ; and that these are
not allowed to leave him. I was informed that the Pope had vomitings
and fever yesterday : and that they have relieved him of nine ounces of
blood. During the day, His Holiness caused some cardinals to play at
cards before Him while He rested. I was informed also that last night He
slept fairly well. But to-day between the eighteenth and nineteenth hour,
(2-3 P.M.) there was a crisis like that of Saturday, of a kind which makes
His courtiers uneasy ; and every one is unwilling to speak of His condition.
I have sought by all means to obtain information : but the more I seek,
the less I learn ; for the physicians, the chirurgeons, and the apothecaries
are not allowed to quit the Presence : from which I conclude that the
malady is grave. The Duke of the Romagna also, is very sick with fever,
vomitings, and disorder of the stomach. It is not astonishing that His
Holiness, and His Excellency should be ill; for all the courtiers, especially
those who are in the palace, are in the same state, by reason of the unwholesome
conditions of the air, which, there, they breathe.^'

The last sentence, in italics, is of exceedingly great
importance. The operation of venesection did not effect a
lysis, as appears from the dispatches of Giustiniani which
continue the tale. On the fifteenth of August, he wrote to
the Venetian Senate that it was difficult to get positive
information : but that the affair was serious ; and, that
there was likely to be disorder in the City if the Pope
died.

On the sixteenth of August, he wrote that the Pope
and the Duke continued to be tormented with fevers, and
that the Duke's was the more violent. He added that the
condition of the Pope must be aggravated by His anxieties
and cares, and by the sickness of the Duke.

On the seventeenth of Auo^ust, Giustiniani wrote aeain :

" Yesterday I wrote to Your Sublimity by Girolamo Passamonte the
courier, who arrived here. To-day I inform you that our Lord the Pope
has taken medicine. The fever continually torments Him, not without
danger. I am informed by a sure authority that the Bishop of Venosa,
chief-physician of His Blessedness and a familiar of the Cardinal Giovan-
tonio di Sangiorgio, (or, perhaps, the Cardinal of San Giorgio in Velum

207

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Aureum, Rafaele Galeotto Sansoni-Riario,) has told his steward that the
sickness of the Pope is very dangerous, and that he ought to make the
said cardinal hasten hither ; which thing has been done."

He adds that the partisans of Duke Cesare, expecting a
riot on the death of the Pope, have made secure their
property and have taken precautions to prevent ill news
from being bruited abroad. This was ordinary political
prudence.

On the eio"hteenth of August, the same Orator wrote,

" Early this morning, our Lord the Pope, knowing of the danger of
His sickness, has received His rites ; and some cardinals have been
admitted into the presence of His Blessedness. The Viaticum was given
in secret ; for His familiars try to conceal His condition as much as
possible. They say, that the Bishop of Venosa, early this morning before
the Communion, came from the Pope's Chamber, weeping, and saying to
one of his people that the danger was very grave, and complaining with
chagrin of the inefficacy of some potions which, yesterday, he had
administered. . . . The Duke also is very sick. It has been said to my
secretary, Sir Secretary, this is no time for ceremonies or fine words. Tell
the Orator to hasten to inform the Senate of Venice that the Pope graviter
LABORAT. Also, the same informant said that the Pope cannot live much
longer without a miracle."

On the eighteenth of August, Giustiniani also wrote a
second dispatch to the Doge of Venice, in which he said :

" To-day I sent the latest news to Your Sublimity by Lorenzo da
Camerino. After he was gone, Messer Scipione, a physician from the
palace, came to tell me that yesterday at the sixteenth hour (noon), the
Pope, wishing to rise for a certain need, was taken with a fit of choking,
and is in evil plight, going from bad to worse ; and that in his opinion
His Holiness will die to-night : — and, from what he says, I judge the
malady to be an apoplexy. Such also is the opinion of this physician so
excellent is his art."

The Orator adds that, now, Duke Cesare is neglected ;
and is preparing secretly to take refuge in the Mola of
Hadrian.

Monsignor Burchard makes the following entry in his
Diarium, a work of which the original is undiscovered, and
copies only accessible to the student. He was perfectly
qualified to speak on this subject from personal knowledge ;
the demise of the Pope being a ceremonial function which
he would have to arrange and superintend. He says :

2C8

The Roaring Blaze

" On Wednesday the eighteenth of August between the twelfth and
thirteenth hour (8-9 a.m.) He (the Lord Alexander P.P. VI) confessed
Himself to the Lord Bishop Pietro of Culen who said mass in His presence ;
and, after his Communion, administered the Sacrament of the Eucharist to
the Pope, who was seated on His bed ; and then finished the mass. Five
cardinals were present, d'Oristano, di Cosenza, di Monreale,i Casanueva,
and di Constantinople, to whom the Pope said that He felt ill. At the
hour of vespers the said Bishop of Culen administered the Sacrament of
Extreme Unction to Him ; and He died in the presence of the datary and
the bishop."

This event took place in the third room of the Borgia
Tower occupied by the Library counting from the Library
side.

On the nineteenth of August, Giustiniani announced
the news to the Senate, and added, "to-day He was carried
de moro,'^ and shewn to the people; but His corpse was
more hideous and monstrous than words can tell, and
without human form. For decency, it was kept for some
time covered ; and before sunset they buried it in the
presence of two of the cardinal-deacons attached to the
palace."

In reading this dispatch, it must be remembered that
Giustiniani hated the Borgia ; and that the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI was an old man of an obese habit of body. Who
had died of a fever in the height of summer, in a most un-
wholesome quarter of the City, and at a time when antiseptic
treatment was unknown.

The Notary of Orvieto, on his return from Rome four
days later, publicly described to his municipality all that he
had seen of the novendiali ; and added that he had kissed
the feet of His Holiness in St. Peter's^: but said nothing
of any hideous or monstrous appearance of the corpse.

1 Here is a specimen of Mgr. Burchard's or his copyist's gross inaccuracy.
He officially was responsible for the conduct of this function. He intimately
should have known, and directed, every movement and every gesture of every
assistant. And he names, among the cardinals-assistant, the Lord Giovanni
Borgia (detto Seniore) Archbishop of Monreale, Cardinal- Presbyter of Santa
Susanna, who had been dead just eighteen days.

2 i.e. in the usual manner, with all the ceremonies required for the obse-
quies of the pontifical cadaver : not surreptitiously or with maimed rites as
some have said.

^ A dead Pope Hes in state in the Chapel of the Trinity in St. Peter's, sur-
rounded by unbleached wax tapers, and with the feet protruded through the
screen for the osculations of the faithful.

209 O

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Soon after death, a rumour was heard to the effect that
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare de Valenti-
nois della Romao-na had died envenomed.

For three months it was only a rumour. A new Pope
was elected— Cardinal Francesco de' Piccolhuomini of Siena,
who took the name of the Lord Pius P.P. Ill out of respect
to His Uncle, the Lord Pius P.P. 11,^ — and was dead after
a two months' reign.

Then Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, irreconcileable
enemy of Borgia, attained the object of his ambition ; and
was elected Pope by the name of the Lord Julius P.P. II.
And then the rumour took a concrete form.

On the tenth of November it definitely was said that, at
the garden-supper of the fifth of August venom had been
put into some wine by order of the Lord Alexander P. P. VI;
that by a butler's blunder that envenomed wine had been
served to the Pope's Holiness and to Duke Cesare : that
the former being old had died therefrom ; that the latter
being young had endured heroic treatment for a cure.
Some said that he had been plunged into the ripped-up
belly of a live mule or bull amid the steaming palpitating
entrails profusely to sweat the venom out of him : others,
that he had been dipped in iced-water, and so cured.

Writing several years later, Messer Francesco Guicciar-
dini and Messer Paolo Giovio added new details. Guicciar-
dini definitely settled the falsehood in the form in which it
generally appears. He gave a list of cardinals, also, and
prelates who were to have been envenomed by the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI that He might inherit their wealth.
Giovio named and described the venom which, he said, the
Borgia commonly used. He called it Cantarella- ; and
said it was a sugared powder, or a powder under the guise
of suQfar, which was of a wonderful whiteness, and of a
rather pleasant taste. It did not overwhelm the vital forces
in the manner of the active venoms by sudden and energetic
action : but, by penetrating insensibly the veins, it slowly
worked with mortal effect. (Paolo Giovio, Hist. II. 47.

1 Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de' Piccolhuomini, 1458-1464.

- Qy. A concoction of cantharides ? Or was it merely a name, like

Kav6apiri]s olvos ? (Plin. 14. 7. g.)

210

The Roaring Blaze

VIII. 205.) Is there any toxicological chymist who from
this description can give the formula of this extraordinary
venom ?

The testimony of these two men is tainted. Messer
Francesco Guicciardini, who wrote long after the event and
solely from hearsay, was a Florentine. Whatever is, and
was, of Florence, is cultured, pedantic, artificial, in the
highest degree : whatever is, and was, of Rome, is nakedly
natural, original, free, and absolute, in the highest degree.
It was, and is, a habit of mind in the Florentine to decry
Rome and all things Roman. Politically, Messer Francesco
Guicciardini was an adherent of the House of Medici ; and
Medici were naturally the mortal foes of Borgia, seeing
that Borgia had acquiesced in and profited by their expul-
sion from Florence. And he was in the pay of the Roman
Colonna, who were Ghibelline by inherited tradition, i.e.^
upholders of the imperial against the papal prerogative.
He was born in 1482 ; and was of the age of twenty-one
years at the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. In
1530, having exhorted the Lord Clement P.P. VII to
punish Florence for insults which he (Guicciardini) had
received in 1527, he turned traitor against the Medici,
writing invectives against them till his death in 1540. He
divinely wrote at all times a sonorous and courtly Tuscan,
which makes his reader believe that one who could write so
exquisitely must needs write truly. Yet he did not hesitate
to boast that he had a pen of gold for his friends, and a pen
of iron for his foes. Regretfully then it must be said that
Messer Francesco Guicciardini does not deserve belief
unless his statements can be corroborated.

Touching the matter of the Borgia venom, and especially
of the envenoming of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and
Duke Cesare, he is corroborated by Messer Paolo Giovio.

Messer Paolo Giovio was born in 1483, and was of the
age of twenty years at the death of the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI. He issued no books till twenty-one years later.
His first was a quoad-scientific treatise on Roman Fishes
iyDe Piscibus Romanis), published in 1524. He was a
dilettante of a kind. He practised amniomancy, or the art
of divination by inspection of the membrane. Amnios, in

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

which the unborn child is wrapped — fantastic effort of a
seeker after Truth. He was one of those double-faced
historians, who wrote one set of memoirs for the highest
bidder; (Popes whom they despised, Dukes whom they
privately reviled, ) and a second set of memoirs for the enemies
of the patrons of the first. His Life of the Lord Leo P.P. X
(Giovanni de' Medici) is a specimen. Even during his life,
he was considered to be a flagrant liar. He used to say,
with a dog-like knowledge of his masters the "people"
who "desire to be deceived," that the centuries would give
his written lies the force of truth. He used an affected and
flamboyant rather than a pure style ; and was the inferior
of Guicciardini. The Lord Clement P.P. VH (Giulio de'
Medici), to be rid of his incessant importunity, gave him
the bishopric of Nocera ; and he died in 1552.

Who, therefore, wishes to believe Messer Francesco
Guicciardini uncorroborated, or corroborated by Messer
Paolo Giovio, will do so on his own responsibility.

Let it be noted that both Giovio and Guicciardini were
Roman Catholics. Their calumnies against the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI are their own ; and were not invented
by dissenters from their creed. The said calumnies very
naturally have been adopted by these last as articles of
faith ; and repeated usque ad nauseam ; or resented, with
the most unconvincing and inane half-heartedness, by a
majority of modern and soi-disant enlightened Roman
Catholics, who fear (positively they shew every sign of
fear) to credit their own learned clergy of the present day,
Leonetti, Velron, Cerri, and Ollivier, to say nothing of the
laity, e.g., Comte Rene de Maricourt, who have laboured
for justice to the maligned Borgia. Will these astonishingly
inconsistent persons prefer to believe the opinion of an
atheist, who was incidentally a man of common sense? It
is Voltaire who, in speaking of Guicciardini's statement,
(that the Lord Alexander P.P. VI was the victim of venom
which He had set for his cardinals, that, having killed
them. He might take their treasure,) says,

" All the enemies of the Holy See have welcomed this horrible anec-
dote. I myself do not believe it at all ; and my chief reason lies in its
extreme improbability. It is evident that the envenoming of a dozen

212

The Roaring Blaze

cardinals at supper would have caused the Father and the son ^ to become
so execrable, that nothing could have saved them from the fury of the
Roman people, and of the whole of Italy. Such a crime never could have
been concealed. Even supposing that it had not been avenged by all
Italy leagued together, it was directly contrary to the interests of Cesare
(detto) Borgia. The Pope was on the verge of the grave. The Borgia
faction was powerful enough to elect one of its own creatures : was it likely
that the votes of cardinals would be gained by envenoming a dozen of
them ? I make bold to say to Guicciardini, ' Europe has been deceived
by you, and you have been deceived by your feelings. You were the enemy
of the Pope; you have followed the advice of your hatred. It is true that
He had used vengeance cruel and perfidious, against foes perfidious and
cruel as Himself. Hence you conclude that a Pope of the age of seventy-
two years could not die a natural death. You maintain, on vague rumour,
that an aged sovereign, whose coffers at that time contained more than a
million of gold ducats," desired to envenom several cardinals that He
might seize their treasures. But were these treasures so important ? The
treasures of cardinals nearly always were removed by their gentlemen before
the Popes could seize them. Why do you think that so prudent a Pope
cared to risk the doing of so very infamous a deed for so very small a
gain ; a deed that could not be done without accomplices ; and that
sooner or later must have been discovered ? May I not trust the official
accounts of the Pope's sickness, more than the mere rumours of the mob ?
That official account declares the Pope to have died of a double-tertian
fever. There is not the slightest vestige of proof in favour of the accusa-
tion which you have brought against His memory. His son Borgia ^
happened to fall sick at the time when his Father died. That is the sole
foundation for the story of the venom.' "

It will appear that the death of the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI, from venom, is improbable. It may also be said
that it was impossible, for reasons here forthcoming.

TV* w w .

1 M. de Voltaire speaks of Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) as "the son."
_ 2 Ducato d'oro = half a guinea with four times its purchasing power. A
milUon of gold ducats would equal ;^2,ooo,ooo sterling.

3 M. de Voltaire speaks of Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) as the Pope's son ;
and of the Pope as Duke Cesare's Father.

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The Legend of the Borgia Venom

One of the stock phrases used by biographers and historians
of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries was "he (or she)
— died in the odour of sanctity." Another was "he (or
she) — died not without suspicion of venom." Both phrases
are the merest expression of private opinion, the importance
of which depends upon the integrity and knowledge of the
user : but in no case do they amount to a dogmatic, final,
infallible, or authoritative, decision.

When a person is said to have departed this life in the
odour of sanctity, (a purely technical phrase, insusceptible
of literal translation,) sooner or later the process of eccle-
siastical law is begun for obtaining for the deceased the
successive titles, Venerable Servant of God, tJie Blessed — ,
and Saint — . These titles, only being conferred after
stringent examination of quality lasting many years and
sometimes many centuries,^ are taken to prove the pious
opinion "died in the odour of sanctity" to have been
founded on a verity.

But when a person is said to have died " not without
suspicion of venom," it is very rarely that steps are taken,
juridically to examine that suspicion with a view to proving
it to be founded on fact or falsehood. The world
deliberately prefers to believe the worst of man, deliberately
prefers suspicion. The expression in the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries was as randomly and as inconsequently

^ The Venerable Servant of God, King yElfred the Great of England, has
not yet been styled " The Blessed." Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of
England under Henry VIII Tudor, only was admitted to the rank of "The
Blessed" in 1886, by the Lord Leo P.P. XIII. He now publicly may be
invoked by name, and his portraits decorated by a halo.,

214

The Legend of the Borgia Venom

used as the cry for a General Council, by every one who
found occasion to go "against the government"; and it
certainly does not command respect by reason of its
absurdly frequent repetition. It was the fashion for their
enemies to accuse the Borgia of compassing the death of
some by venom. It was also the fashion for the Borgia to
retort upon their enemies in the same formula. There can
be no human doubt that the Borgia and their enemies
would have envenomed each the other, had they known
how to do so with security and certainty. It was a habit
of the Latin Races to see no distinction between venom
and steel when the idea was to get rid of a foe. Cold
northern nations, the English in particular, always have
had a horror of venom, preferring boots, fists, bullet, or
blade ; indeed one of the most hideous penances ordained
by English and Post- Reformation law was awarded to
criminals who had envenomed the lieges. They were
boiled alive. "This year, the XVII March, was boy led in
Smithfield one Margaret Davis, a maiden which had
poisoned three households that she dwelled in." (Wrio-
thesley's Chronicle, 1542.)

Perhaps to this habit, of regarding the use of venom as
so horrible a crime, is due the fascination which those,
who are supposed to have attained high eminence in
its practice, have for Englishmen. Undoubtedly, Lord
Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare de Valentinois della
Romagna are regarded as having been artists in venom,
possessing knowledge far surpassing that of modern
alchymists. They are believed to have envenomed their
foes, named and unnamed, by the score ; and, at last, to
have fallen into the pit that they have digged for others.

Of the cases named, Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (detto
Giuniore), the Sultan Djim, and Cardinal Orsini, are the
most important. The improbability in the case of the
first already has been shewn : Duke Cesare and he were
friendly ; their interests were asymptotic ; and they were
apart during the seventeen days before the cardinal died.
The improbability in the case of the Sultan Djim lies in
the fact that the Pope lost 40,000 ducats annually, and the
only means of keeping the Turks from Christendom, by

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

his death which was due to natural causes, and took place
when he was in the hands of the Christian King
Charles VIII at Naples, some weeks after he had left
Rome. The improbability in the case of Cardinal Orsini
is proved by the tainted source from which the charge
emanated ; by the publicity of all proceedings before and
after his death ; and by the sworn testimony of his leeches.
Cases of this kind must be considered together ; and
rejected or accepted together ; for rumours do not gain
credibility from vociferous repetition : nor does it avail to
plead that because advantages accrue from the death of
such a one, therefore, the person benefited by the death is
likely to have envenomed the deceased. Death is always
advantaofeous to some one livino^ : but in no case named did
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare reap any
gain whatever, but contrariwise loss. As for the statement,
that the venom of the Borgia was a slow venom, slow in
action, dirigible in absence, it safely may be said that no
such venom existed then any more than it does now.

This slow venom is an invention of purveyors of a
certain class of fiction, doing vast credit to their imagina-
tive powers, but possessing no tangible existence. These
writers of fiction are merchants who must supply their
customers with goods upon demand. The Legend of the
Borgia Venom is a department of their trade. The public
has read it and cried for more according to the sample. The
public is pleased to amuse itself. At other times the public has
the humour to inform itself ; and takes spiritual pastors, and
masters, cunning in all learning, in all verities of past and
present. From these, the truth is required for mental
profit ; from the others invention and imagination for mental
recreation. The public pays and has the right to choose
what it will buy. A grocer, who would venture to supply
pickles instead of pepper ordered, would encounter his
patron's discontent. A teacher, who would venture to
purvey fiction instead of fact required, would meet with
similar disaster, one would think. But in sober earnest,
the Legend of the Borgia Venom so very industriously has
been propagated, that modern serious writers have adopted
it as one of the items which safely may be included in their

216

The Legend of the Borgia Venom

serious writings : and the public finding it there, in places
where truth is expected to be, looks upon the false as true
because it comes with the imprimatur of authority.

Herr Eugene Burckhardt's very learned modern work,
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, of which an
English Translation is accessible, is a case in point. It
purports to be gravely written, and is a mine of accurate
information. Yet, among continuous ropes of pearls of
wisdom, occasionally one is startled by the discovery of a
bead so base, that one wonders how it has escaped detection
and damnation. Here is an example,

" Strictly speaking, as we are now discussing phases of Italian civiliza-
tion, this pontificate (1492-1503) might be passed over, since the Borgia
are no more Italian than the House of Naples. Alexander spoke Spanish
in public with Caesar ; Lucrezia at her entry into Ferrara, where she wore
a Spanish costume, was sung to by Spanish Buffoons : their confidential
servants consisted of Spaniards, as did most of the ill-famed company of
the troops of Caesar in the war of 1500; and even his Hangman Don
Michelotto, and his Poisoner Sebastian Pinzon, seem to have been of the
same nation."

That is a specimen of the slipshod way in which serious
writers are false to their trust, of the half-truths which they
make to serve for the truth about the Borgia. It is exceed-
ingly necessary to lay great stress upon the Spanish origin
of the Borgia, lest odium undeserved should light on their
adopted country Italy. They were very fine examples of
their race : but never let it be forgotten that their vices,
(for, being men, they had their vices) were Spanish and
not Italian vices. Herr Burckhardt does well to emphasize
this fact, and to enrich and illuminate it with a wealth of
illustration : but when he comes to speak of Don Michelotto
as Duke Cesare's Hangman, and of Sebastian Pinzon as his
Poisoner, with the light and easy freedom which one uses
in speaking of "the unquestioned things that are"; then
one is compelled to conjure up the horrible and fantastic
picture of the Generalissimo of the Pontifical Army stalking
about the continent of Europe with an official Hangman
and an official Poisoner in his entourage. Don Michelotto
was a captain of Duke Cesare's condottieri, a valued con-
fidential servant, perhaps, on sudden occasion, as at Sini-

217

chronicles of the House of Borgia

gaglia, his executeur des hautes oeuvres : but never a pro-
fessional Hano-man. And Sebastian Pinzon ? Is it to be
believed that Duke Cesare — for this really is what Herr
Burckhardt's amazing statement implies — did so much
venenation in the way of business, that it was as necessary
to have a Lord High Poisoner attached to his staff as a
Groom of the Stola or a Clerk of the Hanaper?^ The
thing is absurd ; worthy of comic opera, not of serious
history. But the origin of Herr Burckhardt's error shall be
traced.

Giustiniani the Orator of Venice, to whom the Borgia
were intensely antipathetic, and who neglected no oppor-
tunity of relating rumours detrimental to them, sent to his
government a dispatch dated the twentieth of July 1502,
stating, that the Most Illustrious Lord Giambattista Ferrari,
Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Crisogono, vulgarly
called the Cardinal of Modena, had died ; that, in accord-
ance with his testament, his gfoods and benefices had been
distributed ; that his archbishopric of Capua had been given
to the young and lusty Lord Cardinal- Prince Ippolito
d'Este (now of the age of twenty-four years and a person
of fashion ;) that his bishopric of Modena had been given
to his brother ; that the greater part of his goods had been
given to his secretary Messer Sebastiano Pinzoni ; that this
last bequest was called "the price of blood" for the secre-
tary had envenomed his master, to have his goods ; that
the Pope had endowed the said secretary with a canonry in
Padua, the prefecture of Sant' Agata in Cremona, a benefice
in Rome, another in Mantua valued at five hundred ducats,
and had received him inter familiares.

Now there is no word in that dispatch which implicates
Duke Cesare. We learn that Messer Sebastiano Pinzoni,
secretary to the Cardinal of Modena, was said, by rumour,
to have envenomed his master in order to profit thereby ;
and also that the said secretary had been patronised by the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI. That is all. It would be un-
pleasant to think of the P^ope's Woliness as the patron of a
murderer : yet that would be the obvious conclusion, if the

^ The Clerk of the Hanaper is the domestic in charge of the great gallon
goblet called the hanaper.

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The Legend of the Borgia Venom

matter ended here. But it does not. There is further
record of Messer Sebastian© Pinzoni, which makes it clear
that his crime at first was unknown to the Pope ; and that
on its discovery he was forced to take refuge in flight. It
is Monsio^nor Burchard who records in his Diarum under
date Wednesday the twentieth of November 1504, that the
Ruota (the supreme secular tribunal of the Holy Roman
Church) delivered sentence against Sebastiano Pinzoni,
Apostolic Scribe, who was contumacious and absent,
depriving him of all benefices and offices, for that he had
slain with venom the Lord Cardinal of Modena his patron
who had raised him from the dunghill.^ Ciacconi says that
the Cardinal of Modena was envenomed by Sebastiano
Pinzoni, his gentleman-of-the-bedchamber ; who, being
imprisoned on another charge in the reign of the Lord
Leo P.P. X, when put to the Question, confessed this crime,
which he before had denied.

Let it be admitted that Sebastiano Pinzoni envenomed
his master, then. But Herr Burckhardt brings no evidence
to prove that he was connected with Duke Cesare ; nor is
it established that he was employed by His Excellency in
any capacity, private, or official. But every crime of every
criminal in the Borgian Era is attributed to Borgia as a
matter of course ; and Herr Burckhardt, writing serious
history, introduces fiction, and passes off Sebastiano Pinzoni
as Duke Cesare's Poisoner !

To turn from the historian to the novelist will afford a
little recreation in this quest of the Venom of the Borgia ;
and, also, the diversion will not be unprofitable : for the
novelist is an exceedingly important person by reason that
he commands an infinitely wider audience than the historian,
and influences, forms, or moulds, an infinitely larger section
of opinion. M. Alexandre Dumas in his Crimes Celebres
has much to say about the Borgia. Knowing, as a practised

1 " Mercurii xx Nov. fuit data sententia in Rota, contra Sebastianum
Pinzonum, scriptorum apostolicum, absentem ob contumaciam, privationis
omnium beneficiorum et officiorum " (interesting to notice that, in the reign of
the Lord Julius P.P. II, the eternal enemy of Borgia, a convict on the capital
charge was merely ruined, and not sentenced to death;) ''pro quod eo dominum
cardinalem Mutinensem patronum suum veneno interemisset, qui eum de
stercore eximerat."

219

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

hand, that the best fiction is that which has a substratum of
fact and an air of truth, M. Dumas quotes the precious
Messer Paolo Giovio and his Cantarella which already has
been mentioned here. Further, with a wealth of "corro-
borative detail calculated to o-ive verisimilitude to an other-
wise bald and unconvincing narrative," he describes the
preparation c^f a liquid venom which, he says, the Borgia
used. A bear was caucrht and made to swallow a strong"
dose of arsenic. When this began to take effect, the bear
was suspended by his hind-legs head-downward ; and in-
continent he would fall into convulsions, while from his
throat there poured a copious deadly stream of foam, which
was collected on a silver plate, bottled in vials hermetically
sealed ; and this was the liquid Venom of the Borgia.

There were plenty of bears in the Apennines, perhaps,
even in the Alban Hills within twenty miles of Rome; so
the bear is probable enough. Having caught his bear,
Duke Cesare would convey him to the Vatican — a large
palace truly, but rather too full of people to be desirable as
a private venom-factory. On a dark night in a lonely
courtyard, the Pope's Holiness and the Duke's Excellency
would administer the arsenic to the bear. The method of
administration is not described, nor the slinging up of the
beast prior to his convulsions, nor the picture of the aged
Pontiff skipping round with the silver plate in His solicitude
that no drop of the fluid should be lost, nor the solemn
bottling of the vials, nor their hermetic sealing with what
seal } The Ring of the Fisherman '^ And M. Dumas
carefully omits to say that the nasty mess so secretly
and arduously obtained would have been far less venomous
than the original dose of arsenic ; which, administered
neat, without the intervention of an ill-used bear, certainly
would have slain : but which would be deprived of most, if
not of all, of its venomous potency, by its submission to the
digestive processes of M. Dumas' improbable and impos-
sible bear.

* # *

Undoubtedly, there were the same venomous substances
in and on this earth in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth
Centuries, as there are now : some few were known ; but

220

The Legend of the Borgia Venom

many more, and these the most sure and deadly, were not
even dreamed of, e.g., strychnine, prussic acid, or the hideous
bacilH, accessible as dust to any Twentieth-Century medico
who, on the sole condition that he is not instigated by
criminal motives, with perfect security to himself can
envenom and slay a street, a district, or a city. In the year
1 1 64, Abd-el-Mumin-ben-Ali the Moorish King of Spain
chased from his dominions all Jews and Christians who
refused the faith of Islam. Among these, to Egypt went
the celebrated Moses ben-Maimon. All that was known,
he knew ; and he knew sixteen venoms ; litharge, verdigris,
opium, arsenic, spurge or milk-wort, cashew-nut, hemlock,
henbane, stramonium or thorn-apple, hemp, mandrake,
venomous fungi, plantain, black-nightshade or felon-wort,
belladonna, and cantharides. To these, were added in the
Borgian Era four centuries later, the tri-sulphite of arsenic,
orpiment, antimony, corrosive sublimate, aconite or wolfs-
bane or monkshood, and perhaps white hellebore, and
black or Christmas-Rose ; making two and twenty sub-
stances known to be venomous.

Undoubtedly, much damage might be done with this
arsenal of venoms : but only in the event of the existence
of the will to use them, and of the knowledge of the method
of their exhibition.

Undoubtedly, there was the will. The fact that
Madonna Caterina Sforza Riario (author of a wonderful
collection of recipes, domestic and medicinal, a good house-
wife as well as witch and warrior,) was said to have
attempted the envenoming of the Pope's Holiness, as
described in Book II, speaks for the fact that venom was
feared, and therefore likely to be used. Governments
experimented with venoms : for what purpose, who can tell }
M. Lamanshy published an interesting document dated
1432 which he found in the Venetian Secret Archives.^
" Trial has been made, on three porcine animals, of
certain venoms, found in the chancery, sent very long ago
from Vicenza, which have been proved not to be good."

I " Fuit facta proba, in tribus animalibus porcinis, de aliquibus venenis,
repertis in cancelleria, missis perantea a Vincencia, qua reperta sunt non esse
bona." (Secrets de 1' Etat de Venise, Petersburg, 1884, p. 6.)

221

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Undoubtedly, there was the will. Undoubtedly, also,
there was not the ability.

Jf, M, Jt,

W T? TV*

Strange and paradoxical though it may seem to be,
alchymical knowledge, alchymical art, was in a lower con-
dition during the years succeeding the Renascence of
Learnino-, than it had been in the Middle Ao-es, the so-called
Dark Ages, which had gone before. The Dark Ages were
the ages of Simples. The Age of the Renascence was the
age of Compounds. And, in those compounds, virtue was
changed, or lost, by sublimation, by distillation, or annulled
by heterogeneous admixture. The following will make this
plain.

In the Dark Ages, medicaments were made from single
herbs exhibited in the form of draughts, poultices, lotions,
or unguents. The old herbaries of Dioskorides, or of
Appulejus, were used as text-books ; and a few extracts
from these will be curious, perhaps valuable, certainly a
help to understanding.

(a) The herb Betony or Bishopwort {Betonica
officinalis) must be gathered in August without the
help of iron, the mould shaken from the roots, and
dried in the shade. When triturated, two drachms
of it, mixed with hot beer or wine or honey, is
an antidote to venom, a digestive, a cure for
hydrophobia, constipation, toothache, and prevents
monstrous nocturnal visitors, or frightful sights
and dreams. A lotion, made from the herb seethed
in fresh water till two-thirds are evaporated, cures
broken-head, epistaxis, fatigue, and rupture ; or the
leaves may be used as a poultice. (As a matter of
fact, Betony is intoxicating, emetic, and purgative.)
(/3) The herb Vervain or Ashthroat ( Verbena officinalis)
must be pounded as a poultice for wounds and
carbuncles. It is an antidote to all venoms, and
dogs may not bark at him who bears it.
(7) The herb Clovewort {Ranimctilus acris), wreathed
with red thread on the neck during the waning of
the April or October moon, cures lunacy.
(S) The herb Mugwort {^Artemisia dracuftcztlus), pounded

222

The Legend of the Borgia Venom

to an unguent with well-boiled olive-oil, will make
strained sinews supple. (This is excellent.)

(f) The herb Ravensleek [Orchis, '2aTvpiov) will cure
sore eyes when they are smeared with its juice.

(^) The herb Watercress [Nasturtium officinale) will
with its juice stop hair from falling.

(tj) The herb Madder [Rtibia tinctorid) as a poultice
cures sciatica.

(0) The herb Clover ( Tri/olium pratense) prevents him
who carries it from suffering sore jaws.

(t) The herb Rosemary {Ros?narinus officinalis) is good
for the teeth.

(k) The herb Rue {Ruta grave a lens), eaten green is an
antifat ; a twig stops nose-bleeding ; macerated in
vinegar and soused on the brow induces forget-
fulness. Recommended for priests who wish to
observe their vow of continence.

(X) The herb Dwarfdwostle or Pennyroyal [Mentha
pulegizim), as unguent, cures sea-sickness ; as a
salve, or burned as incense, cures fever and belly-
ache.

(ju) The herb Sage [Salvia), as a lotion, cures itch.

(v) The herb Marjoram [Origanum vulgare), steeped
in vinegar, cures headache, or may be chewed for
a cough.

if) The herb Foxglove [Digitalis purpurea), as a
poultice, cures sores and pimples, 'ipTTr\q. (Its
venomous principle appears to be unknown.)

(o) The herb Wildthyme or Shepherdspurse [Thymus
campestris) will remove all inward foulness by the
drinking of its ooze.

(tt) The herb Violet ( Viola odorata), made into an
unguent with lard or honey, cures wounds.

(/o) The herb Wildgourd [Cuctunis colocynthus, KoXoKwOog
aypia), its inward neshness pounded in lithe beer
without the churnels, will stir the inward.

Those are Simples, i.e., medicaments derived from
single herbs, easily come-by, within the reach of all ;
suited to a simple, but by no means silly, race of men
content with simple things, gifted with faith and sense,

223

chronicles of the House of Borgia

and unconcerned to dive below the surface and explore, or
experiment with, nature's sacrosanct arcana.

The Renascence of Learning, when the works of ancient
writers were rediscovered, devoured, put in practice, filled
men's minds with new ideas, and completely changed their
point of view.

TAe Most Salubrious Precepts of Medicine written by
Ouintus Serenus Sermonicus in the Third Century ; the
Thirty Seven Books of Natu7'al History by C. Plinius
Secundus (Pliny Senior) which first saw light in a.d. "j"] ;
the eighty-three Treatises of Claudius Galenus, (a.d. 130-
200); the thirty-four chapters of \\\^ Animal Medicaments
which Sextus Placitus wrote in the Fourth Century after
the Incarnation ; the eight books of Alexandros of Tralles
in Lydia, On Medicine, first given to the world in the
Sixth Century ; — these were the keys that opened the door
of speculation to the alert and eager men of the Fifteenth
Century, already intoxicated by the glorious Discovery of
Man.

Weird and wonderful effects were produced by this
Hood of knowledge. Weird and wonderful were the new
significances given to natural things, the combinations of
natural objects projected, the doctrines evolved from
observation of natural phenomena. The study of nature
became a sacred thing, reserved for the reverent and wise.
Its followers were called magi, or magicians ; their pursuit
was magic. The magical art was either white or black,
for the good or ill of men. Great and holy personages
practised white magic : the black was damned by the
Church, and the bare suspicion of its practice sufficed to
burn. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI distinguished Himself
by His severity to the black magi. White magic included
the art of healing ; divination by cheiromancy, amniomancy,
lithomancy, astrology, and also experimented to find out the
hidden properties and virtues of all things strange, as
well as common. It was a vast field for research ; and the
men who walked therein were just like boys, eager,
sensible, ardent, inexperienced, ready to assume and take
for crranted.

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The Legend of the Borgia Venom

A most eminent mage was Messer Eurico Cornelio
Agrippa. During the pontificate of the Lord Alexan-
der P.P. VI he wrote his learning in a book which he
called The Book of Occult Philosophy. In the year 1510
he shewed his work to a friend, the celebrated Abbot
Trithemius, who was charmed with it, added to it, and
advised Messer Eurico to impart it to the elect alone.
The advice apparently was taken ; for the book was not
published till 1531. The mage largely dealt with kabba-
listic writing, giving various mysterious alphabets for use
in magical recipes. He set forth the sigils planets and
planet-signs of certain archangels, patrons of the days of
the week, Michael, Gabriel, Samael, Raphael, Sachael,
Anael, Cassiel, with their proper perfumes, red wheat,
aloes, pepper, mastic, saffron, pepperwort, sulphur. He
placed great importance on charms and periapts or
amulets.

" St. Thomas Aquinas," he wrote, " that holy Doctor, in his Book De
Fato saith that even Garments, Buildings, and other artificial Works
whatsoever, do receive a certain Qualification from the Stars : and
Magicians affirm that, not only by the Mixture and Application of natural
Things, but also in Images, Seals, Rings, Glasses, and some other Instru-
ments, being opportunely framed under a certain Constellation, some
celestial illustration may be taken, and some wonderful thing may be
received."

This being his idea, it is not surprising to find him
prescribing for the reduction of an intermittent fever, the
following charm of Ouintus Serenus Sermonicus to be
written on parchment and worn round the neck :

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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

or, as a protection against evil spirits and dangers of journey,
water, enemy, or arms, the beginning and end of the first
five verses of Genesis :

nmn nnoi:

written on virgin parchment, or on most pure gold, back
and front, with an ink made of the smoke, of incense, or
of consecrated wax-tapers, mixed with holy-water. This
charm also must be worn round the neck, and its efficacy
is conditional upon the belief of the wearer in God the
Creator of All.

Men of the Borgian Era knew that the tail of an ibex,
dried with its flesh and skin and worn about the person,
would ward off magic unless the wearer should consent
thereto. This they learned from St. Hildegard's treatise
De Aniinalibus. They knew that the herb Heliotrope or
Turnsole {^Heliotropion Eziropaeuni), placed under the
pillow of a man who has been robbed, will bring him a
vision of the thief and his spoil ; and that, when it was set
up in a church, unfaithful wives would be unable to go
away until it was removed. Their faith in the virtue of
gems was very precious ; and chiefly derived from the
physician Alexandros of Tralles. A cockatrice engraved
on green jasper preserved from the Evil Eye. A metal
cross tied on the left arm cured epilepsy. A live spider
tied in a rag on the same arm cured ague. A metal ring,
engraved with the sacred tau X (the ""Mark on the Fore-
head''), also freed from epilepsy. A ring, set with ass-hoof,
cured d^wa/xla. A ring, carved with a council of ravens for
Apollo, conferred conjugal joy and the gift of clear-seeing.
A brownish-yellow jacinth gave sleep. An agate, carved
with St. John the Divine, protected from venom. Oriental
jasper or heliotrope (blood-stone), engraved with a youth
wearing a necklace of herbs, when anointed with marigold
juice, conferred invisibility. A copper ring, figured with
a lion, a crescent, and a star, and worn on the fourth finger,
cured calculus. Amethyst kept the wearer sober, and a
papal bull ordained it for episcopal rings. Coral delivered
from incubi and succubi. Herakles strangling the lion of
Nemea, carved on a honey-coloured sard, cured colic.

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The Legend of the Borgia Venom

Carnelian carved with a Hermes Psuchopompos gave
cheerfulness and courage. A man might live as long as
he liked if he looked at a presentment of St. Christopher
(the Christian Herakles) every day.^ The toad-stone or
bufonite (the fossil palatal tooth of the ray-fish Pycnodus)
when set in a ring was a most potent periapt against black
magic. In the University Galleries at Oxford, No. 691, there
is a splendid specimen of a double-toad-stone ring ; i.e.,
the stones are set outward on opposite sides of the ring so
that the one always touches the closed hand, while the
other is free to dismay a magical enemy.

Cheiromancy was expounded by Messer Andrea Corvo
da Carpi, whose deeply religious little treatise adorned with
diagrams was published at Venice in 1500.

But the chief of the men of science of the Borgian Era
was Messer Giambattista della Porta of Naples. Born in
1445, dying in 15 15, he was an exact contemporary of
Borgia. What he did not know of natural science, no other
man of his epoch knew. His house in Naples was a resort
of literary and scientific men of every nation. He estab-
lished public and private academies of science in all
directions, the chief of which were Gli Ozioni of Naples
and one called II Secreti which met in his own house, and
to which no mao^e was admitted unless he had made some
new and notable discovery of natural phenomena. This
was the academy whose name and air of mystery excited
intense ecclesiastical suspicion at Rome, which by hinting
at black magic procured the order to close the meetings of
the mages.

Messer Giambattista della Porta was a copious writer.
He gave to the world a treatise On Physiognomy, in which
he judges men's characters by comparing their faces to
those of certain beasts ; and a diffuse and learned work on
cyphers, De Occultis Literium Notis. His great work, how-
ever, was The Book of Natural Magic. He says that he
began it in 1460, when he barely was of the age of fifteen
years ; — these were the precocious times when Messer
Giovanni de Medici was a Lord Cardinal at thirteen and

1 " Christophori sancti faciem qiiicunque iudur
Ilia ncmpc die mala niortc non vioridur."
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Prince Gioffredo- Borgia of Squillace a married man and
captain of condottieri at fourteen ; — and thirty-five years
later in 1495, by the help of that lusty young Maecenas the
Lord Cardinal Prince Ippolito d'Este, he published the
matured work from which the following recipes are taken.

Very few English people realize the doctrine of
Sympathy and Antipathy ; or admit that Attraction and
Repulsion are Primary Forces. "I do not love thee,
Doctor Fell, the reason why I cannot tell," says the
Enolishman, and worries to find that reason instead of
recognising the Law. " She is simpatica and he is anti-
paticissimo," says an Italian, stating and admitting a natural
law. Messer Giambattista della Porta is very clear on the
point of Antipathy, which he illustrates by saying that Vine
and Colewort are natural enemies, because Colewort cures
drunkenness ; that Rue and Hemlock are natural enemies,
because Hemlock heals blisters raised by Rue : as well as
on the point of Sympathy which he illustrates by saying
that a wild bull, tethered to a fig-tree, will become tame
and gentle ; and a dog, laid to a diseased part of a man's
body, will absorb the disease.

He says that beasts have knowledge all their own : that
ravens use ivy, eagles use maidenhair, herons use carrots,
on their nests as natural preservatives against enchant-
ments : that cats eat grass, and pigeons pellitory, for their
ailments : that lions with quartan agues eat apes, that dim-
eyed hawks eat sow-thistle, that serpents rejuvenate on
fennel, and that partridges eat leeks to clear their voices.

To prove that he has not gone about the world with
eyes closed, he remarks that mice are generated of putre-
faction, frogs of rotten dust and ra^n, red toads of dirt and
icaTajU)yi/m, and serpents of the hair of horses' manes or of a
dead man's back-marrow.

He advises the creation of new animals by cross-
breeding ; a hunting dog, of a mastiff and a lioness or
tigress ; a trick dog, of a bitch and an ape ; and birds with
delicious flesh for gourmets, of a cock and a peahen, or of a
cock pheasant and a plain hen. His method of making a
bird sociable and friendly is quaint and unique. He says
that, before the creature has got its feathers, you must

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The Legend of the Borgia Venom

break off its lower beak even to the jaw. Then, having
not the wherewithal to peck up food, it must come to its
master to be fed.

He advocates the creation of new fruits which sound
most daintily, by grafting a mulberry on a chestnut tree, a
peach on a nut, a quince on a pear, a citron on an apple,
and a cherry on a bay. He advises the making of bread
with dates and walnuts ; and of wine with quinces.

He will make precious stones — a jacinth by putting lead
into an earthen pot, and setting it in a glass-maker's furnace
until the lead is vitrified : or an emerald by dissolving silver
in aqua-fortis, casting in plates of copper to which the com-
position will adhere, drying the plates in the sun, setting
them in an earthen pot for some days in a glass-maker's
furnace.

He says that green and merry dreams may be procured
by eating balm, or bugloss, or bows of poplar ; and black
and melancholy dreams by eating beans, lentils, onions,
garlic, leeks.

He will cure toothache with roots of pellitory or of
herbane, bruised. For the care of the teeth he recommends
a wash made of leaves of mastic, rosemary, sage, and
bramble, macerated in Greek wine, {i.e., a strong rich wine
grown in dry volcanic soil :) or a tooth-powder made of
barley bread-crumbs browned with salt. But his recipe for
white and pearly teeth is a master-piece.

" Take three handfuls each of flowers and leaves of sage, nettle, rose-
mary, mallov/, olive, plantain, and rind of walnut roots ; two handfuls each
of rock-rose {Kia-rog), horehound, bramble-tops ; a pound of flower and
half a pound of seed of myrtle ; two handfuls of rose buds ; two drachms
each of sandal-wood, coriander, and citron-pips ; three drachms of cinna-
mon ; ten drachms of cypress nuts ; five green pine-cones ; two drachms
each of mastic and Armenian bole or clay. Reduce all these to powder.
Infuse them in sharp black wine. Macerate them for three days. Slightly
press out the wine. Put them in an alembic and distil them on a gentle
fire. Boil the distillation till two ounces of alum is dissolved in it. Keep
in a close-stopped vial : and, for use, fill the mouth with the lotion, and
rub the teeth with a finger wrapped in fine linen."

An excellent specimen this, of a Compound as distin-
guished from a Simple ; of the sophistication, and of the

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meticulous personal cleanliness, of people of the Borgian
Era.

To cure a man of Envy, says this mage, keep him in
the fresh air, hang carbuncles and jacinths and sapphires
on his neck, let him wear a ring made of ass-hoof and smell
to hyssop and sweet lilies.

Messer Giambattista Porta's ninth Book teaches how to
make women beautiful. There was a fashion which con-
tinued the forehead to the middle of the skull ; and a
depilatory is recommended made of quicklime four ounces,
and orpiment two ounces, boiled until a hen's feather dipped
into it is bared. This frightful compound must not long
remain on the skin ; and the burns should be dressed with
the gum of aspen-bark {Populus Trejiiiila) and oil of roses
or of violets. Or, hair may be removed by fomentation
with hot water, plucking out with nippers one by one,
and anointing the holes with a saturated solution of
saltpetre, or with oil of brimstone or vitriol, the process
being repeated once a year. Where hair is only thin and
downy, the roots of wild hyacinth rubbed on will keep it
back.

To dye the hair yellow, (in imitation of Madonna
Lucrezia Borgia, whose beautiful yellow hair was much
admired,) add enough honey to soften the lees of white wine
and keep the hair wet with this all night. Then bruise
roots of celandine and greater-clivers-madder, mix them
with oil of cummin seed, box-shavings, and saffron ; and
keep this on the head for four and twenty hours, when it
should be washed off with a lye of cabbage-stalks and ashes
of rye-straw.

To make the hair grow it should be washed in the
liquid that first distils from honey by the fire : or it should
be anointed with an unguent made of marsh-mallow bruised
in hog's grease, boiled long in wine, added to bruised
cummin-seed, mastic, yolk of ^%'g, boiled again, and strained
through linen.

To make hair thick and curly, boil maidenhair with
smallage seed in wine and oil ; or roots of daffydillies, or
dwarf-elder, boiled with wine and oil.

Water, in which the bulbous tops of lilies have been

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The Legend of the Borgia Venom

boiled, makes the skin fair : and corrosive sublimate and
cerusa (white lead) makes the face white and shining.

For sunburn, white of egg and sugar-candy on the face
at night, washed off in barley-water in the morning, is pre-
scribed : and a clear skin is to be had by rubbing with the
rind or bruised seeds of melons. It will be obvious that there
were *' plain " as well as " coloured " women in the Borgian
Era ; i.e., those who went about their duty (of cultivating
their charms) in a wholesome way, and those who used
violent and nasty methods,

Messer Giambattista della Porta appears to have used
his science and magical art to invent " Some Sports against
Women" ; which will show what the Borgian Era regarded
as permissible practical jokes. He says that, if you wish
to discover paint on a face, you must chew saffron before
breathing on her, and incontinently she yellows : or you
may burn brimstone near her, which will blacken mercury
sublimate and cerusa (white-lead) : or you may chew cummin
or garlic and breathe on her, and her cerusa or quicksilver
will decay. But if that you yearn to dye a woman green,
you must decoct a chameleon in her bath.

His tenth book deals with interminable and elaborate
processes of distillation and sublimation ; proving that what
was said on a previous page concerning Letters and Art,
(viz., that the habit of the time was to think all of the work-
manship, and nothing of the material used,) was perfectly
true of Fifteenth-Century pharmacy also. These mages
sat and boiled their alembics and crucibles ; and distilled,
and distilled, and sublimed, and sublimed, till the nature
of their stuff was lost, or utterly changed, instead of
being refined and concentrated as they vainly hoped.
They were just like boys, eager, sensible, ardent, inex-
perienced. They made the inevitable blunders of adven-
turers. They committed the extravagances of human
nature in unwonted circumstances ; and the wisdom of
the Twentieth Century is the fruit of the fooling of the
Fifteenth.

Messer Giambattista della Porta devotes his eleventh
book to Perfumes ; his twelfth to the making of Greek
Fire (from camphor, pitch, spirits and brimstone,) of gun-

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powder, and of rockets shells and mines ; his thirteenth to
the tempering of steel.

His fourteenth book contains monstrous and charac-
teristic recipes connected with meats and drinks. If you
want to make your guests drunken, mix with their wine the
filth of a dog's ear. If you prefer to make them mad-
drunk, give them a camel's froth in water. If you want to
avoid being" overcome of wine, eat leeks and saffron, wear
garlands of roses, violets and ivy-berries, and carry an
amethyst on your person. To keep your boy sober, before
he has tasted wine give him the boiled eggs of an owl, to
temper his natural heat. If you want delicately to drive
unwelcome guests from your table, you may disgust them
with the viands in five ways : first, a needle which has
sewed dead men's shrouds when stuck under the table will
cause all to loathe to eat : secondly, meat secretly peppered
with powdered root of wake-robin [Arum maadaium) will
fetch the skin off their mouths : thirdly, food sprinkled
before serving with powdered leaves of cuckoo-pine {—gen.
Aruni) will produce copious salivation : fourthly, knives and
napkins rubbed with wildgourd juice iCucunis colocynthus,
KoXoKwBic; dypia) will give to all they touch a horrible smack :
lastly, harp-strings, cut small and strewed on hot meat,
will writhe like worms ; and so you may rid your table of
unwelcome gruests.

If you would bone a pigeon, draw, and soak in vinegar
for four-and-twenty hours ; then pull out the bones, wash
well, fill with herbs and spices and roast or boil it. To
make tender a tough capon, boil it before roasting. But,
if you desire to give your friends much joy, entertain them
to a goose cooked alive. In the courtyard, pluck your
goose except her head and neck, and cover her with lard
and suet. Build a ring of faggots round her ; not too
narrow, lest she evade the roasting, nor too wide lest the
smoke choke her, or the fire burn her. Inside the ring
of faggots, on the ground occupied by your plucked and
larded goose, place several pots of water mixed with salt
and bearwort. Light the faggots slowly. When the
goose begins to roast she will walk about ; but she cannot
escape ; and you have her wings. When she grows

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weary and very hot, she quenches her thirst with the
medicated water, and cools her heart and her inward parts.
You continually must moisten her head and her heart with
a sponge at the end of a cane. At last, you will see her
run incontinently up and down ; and presently stumble.
Then she is empty, and there is no more moisture in her
heart. Wherefore you may take her away, and set her on
the table to your guests : she will cry when you pull off her
pieces ; and you almost may eat her before she has died.

The fifteenth and last book of Natural Maoric treats
of various modes of conducting secret correspondence by
invisible inks, writing on eggs or naked backs of drugged
couriers, counterfeit seals and writing, messages by pigeon
or by arrows.

Those are the things of which a sober learned and most
eminent physician of the Fifteenth Century seriously has
written, and called Natural Magic. He shews the innocent
ingenuous mind of a child rampant among new toys.

TV" TV"

Having shewn something of this mage's knowledge, it
may be said, now, that, scattered about his Book of Natural
Magic, carelessly and incidentally, there are allusions to
certain venoms. He says :

I . that i^dfxftXwarig may be procured by exhibiting the wine
that Pliny calls Phthorium {^Ooptog) (Plin. 4, 16, 19,
§ no), made from the grapes of a vine on which
hellebore, wildgourd, and scamony have been
grafted :

n. that Mandrakes (KavSpayopag, Mandragora [Atropa
Officinalis) growing by a vine, will make its grapes
hypnotic :

HI. that one drachm of belladonna ( — geiz. Atropa) or
stramonium (thorn-apple, Datura stravionitmi) in
water, (which they will infect without taste or
smell,) " will make men mad without any hurt, so
that it is a most pleasant spectacle to behold such
mad whimsies and visions. It is very pleasant to
behold. Pray make trial," he lightly says. But
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he adds that one ounce of these drugs will make a
man sleep four days.

IV. that one drachm of Nightshade rind {Solanum
nig7'2mi) in wine will give sleep ; a little more,
madness ; a large dose, death :

V. that Hemlock {Coiihtm maculatiini) in wine will

cause death :

VI. that the drachm dose of belladonna, bruised in
wine, is good for driving away unwelcome guests.

It will be noticed that three of these six prescriptions
contemplate death.

Messer Giambattista della Porta emphatically states
that no single venom will kill all living creatures ; " for
what is venomous to one may serve for the preservation of
another, which comes not by reason of the quality but of
the distinct nature." He gives a lengthy list of substances
with the animals to which they are fatal, e.g., wolfebane
kills wolves ; henbane, hens ; daffydillies, mice ; black
hellebore, oxen ; white hellebore, pigeons ; ivy, bats ;
comfrey, eagles ; pondweed, urchins ; mustard-seed, larks ;
vine-juice, cranes ; willow, tom-tits ; pomegranate-churnels,
falcons, vultures, sea-gulls, blackbirds ; and nux vomica,
dogs. In regard to the last, it should be understood that
the Fifteenth Century called fox-glove {^Digitalis purptirea)
nux vomica ; and had not succeeded in extracting the
vegetable alkaloid Strychnine, in its modern isolated form,
from the Javanese Sr/auxwc mix vomica, of which it is the
active principle.

To complete the exposition of this typical Fifteenth-
Century man of science, his chief Antidote to Venom is
appended here.

" Take three pounds of old oil and two handfuls of St. John's Wort,
(Balm of the Warrior's Wound, hypericum.) Macerate for two months in
the sun. Strain off the old flowers, and add two ounces of fresh. Boil
in Balneo Mariae (a bain-marie) for six hours. Put in a close-stopped
bottle and keep in the sun for fifteen days. During July, add three
ounces of St. John's Wort seed which gently has been stamped and steeped
in two glasses of white wine for three days. Add also two drachms each
of gentian, tormentil, dittany, zedoary, and carline, (all of which must have
been gathered in August,) sandal-wood and long-aristolochie. Gently boil

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The Legend of the Borgia Venom

for six hours in Balneo Mariae. Strain in a press. Add to the expression
one ounce each of saffron, myrrh, aloes, spikenard, and rhubarb, all
bruised. Boil for a day in Balneo Mariae. Add two ounces each of
treacle and mithridate. Boil for six hours in Balneo Mariae. And set it
in the sun for forty days.

" In plague, or suspicion of venom, anoint the stomach, wrists, and
heart ; and drink three drops in wine. It will work wonders," says
Messer Giambattista della Porta.

^ TT W

The pharmacy of the Renascence, to quote the confes-
sion of the charlatan CagHostro, consisted in herbs and
zvords, " in verbis et in herbis."

The practice of medicine during the Borgian Era
appears to have been entirely empirical. Physicians
experimented on the vile body of their patient, trusting to
luck, or chance, or faith, to work a cure. In contracts it
was expressly stated that physicians must have the reputa-
tion of being fortunate (felix). Chirugeons were totally
unaware of the circulation of the blood. So much stress
here is laid upon the art and craft and mystery of medicine
and its exponents, because from these, and from these alone,
the knowledge and use of venoms could be obtained ; and,
if the blind can lead the blind without both falling into the
same ditch, then there might be some foundation in fact for
the legend of the Borgia Venom. But while physicians
and chirugeons and apothecaries solemnly bought three
little boys for a ducat each, drew off their blood and sublimed
it into a potion to save the life of a senile pontiff; or did such
monkey-tricks as Messer Juan de Vigo did to the Lord
Julius P.P. II a few years later, all with quite convincing
evidence of gravity and good faith, one must conclude that
these mages acted according to the very best of their
knowledge and belief; but that, in quantity as well as
quality, their belief was vastly superior to their knowledge.
Nardaeus says^

" The famous chirugeon Juan de Vigo, perceiving that an ulcer of the
Lord Julius P.P. II became every day more stubborn, and that the Pope
persisted in refusing all manner of remedies, hit upon a new method of
cure : for he boiled together, in a brass kettle, for three hours, old rags

1 in Pentade Quaest. latrophilologicarum, p. 122. Ed. Geneva 1647, quot-
ing Juan de Vigo, Lib. H, Chirug. Tract. H, 5-

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cut in pieces, crumbs of fine bread, plantain, and a fomentation of arsenic
sublimed in rose-water ; after which, drying them, and applying them by
way of powder to the wound (to which he had sworn that he would apply
no more plaisters,) he cured the Pope in a very short time, to the admira-
tion of all concerned."

Infantile as was the condition of medical science in
regard to life, it was not one jot more robust in its observa-
tions of death. The cases of the suspicious demises of
two cardinals, not durino- the reio^n of the Lord Alexander
p.p. VI, but a few years later, will illustrate this.

In 1508, during the reign of the eternal enemy of Borgia
the Lord Julius P.P. II, a nephew of His Holiness died,
the Lord Galeotto Franciotto della Rovere, Cardinal-
Presbyter of the Title of San Pietro ad Vincula. And,
says Mgr. Paris de Grassis (Burchard's inimical successor
as Caerimonarius,^ " I saw on his face and on his body
" such spots as seemed to be the effect of a dose of venom ;
" and all the others formed the same opinion."

After autopsy, the chirugeons found no venom, but
"certain bloody spots : wherefore they judged him to have
" died of a superfluity of blood ; and, if he had been phle-
" botomized, he would have had no harm."

The second case is that of the Lord Christopher Bain-
bridge, Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of Santa Prassede,
and Orator of King Henry VII Tudor at the Court of the
Lord Leo P.P. X. He died in Rome, in 1514 ; and, says
Mgr. Paris de Grassis the Caerimonarius, "when his death
"was ascribed to venom ( — this surely ought to prove that
the suspicion was habit2tal, and no more appi^opriate to the
Borgia than to any other f ability of this period, — ) " by
" command of the Pope he was eviscerated, and it was
"found that his heart was diseased on the right side."

Now this Cardinal Bainbridge, whose death obviously
was due to organic disease, has come down to posterity as
a victim of venom ; while Cardinal Dellarovere, whose
salma presented far more suspicious, in fact distinctly
suspicious, symptoms, is reputed to have died a natural
death !

Of all the wonderful and subtile recipes for venoms

' Mgr. Paris de Grassis On Mgr. Hans Durchard is fine indeed !

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which are believed to have been possessed by European
potentates about this time, only one now is accessible : but
it is dated 1540, exactly thirty-seven years after the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI died of his double-tertian fever. It is
a Venetian recipe, and comes from the Secret Archives of
the Council of Ten.^ Arsenic, antimony, orpiment, and
aconite, are to be subjected to a long long process of pre-
paration, similar to those wondrous stews in which Messer
Giambattista della Porta, in company with every other
respectable mage, had his continual joy ; and, when all is
done, the ignorant inventor of this horrible venom says
that he cannot guarantee its success. Why ? The dose of
any single one of those four venomous ingredients alone
would have been fatal. Why should their combination
bring uncertainty ? For the simple reason that the boiling
and the sun-baking, the sublimation and the distillation,
which so prolongedly was practised, set up chemical change,
reaction, decomposition, destroyed the virtue or the nature,
and effectually altered or annulled the venomous properties
originally possessed by the subject of so much empiricism.
As simples, they certainly would have been veneficous.
As compounds, they might have caused grave inconvenience.
But, heterogeneously compounded with alien matter, boiled
to disinteoration for weeks and months tog-ether, their effect
surely could not be predicted. They might have been
dangerous ; or they might not : there is no knowing.
* # *

There is no defined charge against the House of Borg'a
of having compassed their enemies' deaths by means of
venomous rings. The vulgar conception of a venomous
ring is not unconnected with a needle-point, (or point,)
projecting from the bezel, along which a minute drop of
deadly venom can be made to flow ; and which pierces the
hand that grasps it, inducing syncope and death. Or,
another kind conceals a small box in the bezel, containing
a tiny capsule of glass wherein venom innocuously lurks,
until the glass is broken on the lips.

At the Victoria and Albert Museum of South Kensing-
ton, and at the University Galleries of Oxford, there are

1 Lamansky. Secrets de I'Etat de Venise. Petersburg. 1884.

237

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

very splendid collections of rings. Neither collection con-
tains a ring having the legendary needle-point, (or point :)
but each collection has a ring which may have been a proxi-
mate occasion of the vulgar belief.

N° 916 at South Kensington is a massive ring of brass,
1 3^ inches in diameter; and has an octagonal bezel exter-
nally armed with a quincunx of spikes. It belongs to the
Eighteenth Century, and is of the kind worn by Bavarian
peasant-lads on the right middle finger at the present day.

N° 385 at Oxford is an Italian ring of the Fourteenth
Century, of gold niello, very beautiful. The bezel projects,
and ends in the revolving rowel of a Fiery spur.

Both of these rings are weapons, intended hideously to
scratch and tear an adversary's face. There is no hollow
in them that might harbour venom ; and they are in no
sense venomous rings according to the popular specification :
but they are rings, — means of violence of another species — ;
and, (men being what they are,) these rings may have
formed the o-erm of the tradition.

However, at Oxford and South Kensington, there were
rings labelled Poison Rings, at the close of the Nineteenth
Century.

N° 479 in the Fortnum Collection at Oxford, is an
Italian ring of the Sixteenth Century, of gold, and having
a tiny x^pov^ carved in cameo projecting from the high
gold bezel. This bezel is hollow, pierced by two pinholes.
Its capacity is under an eighth of a cubic inch. The hollow
bezel may have been used to contain perfume, introduced
through the pinholes : but it is more reasonable to conjec-
ture that the hollow is due to a desire to economise the
precious metal.

N° 533 in the same collection, is a German ring of the
Seventeenth Century, of gold, and having a large rough
pearl set in, not on, its bezel. Minute examination with
microscope and probe proves that there is absolutely no
room in this ring for any venom whatever ; and that neither
this, nor the foregoing, deserves the designation ''Poison
Ring,'' which, however, discreetly is queried on the actual
official labels. Apparently, the said labels purely are a
concession to the unreasoning vulgar, who expect as a right

238

The Legend of the Borgia Venom

to find at least a specimen of venomous rings in every
respectable museum.

At South Kensington there is a massive ring of iron,
plated and damascened with gold. It is Italian, of the
Seventeenth Century, H of an inch in diameter. Its
octagonal bezel is a tiny box having a hinged lid. This
might have held a relic. There is no ground for supposing
that it ever concealed venom.

Of these three so-called Poison Rings, the South Ken-
sington specimen, and N° 533 at Oxford, belong to a period
at least a hundred years after the demise of the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare (detto Borgia). Only
N" 479 in the Fortnum Collection, by any exercise of
imagination, can be planted in the Borgian Era. It is
labelled " Sixteenth Century " ; and the Lord Alex-
ander P.P. VI reigned in Rome, as God's Vicegerent,
during the hrst two years, seven months, seventeen days,
of that century. There is no earthly cause to connect His
Holiness with that ring : but, for the purpose of the argu-
ment, let it be granted that N° 479 with its cameo x^pov^
belonged to the Borgia Pontiff, that the hollow bezel was
used as a receptacle for venom, and not for perfume.
What then ?

If the venom were a powder, the Pope's Holiness would

have to poke it in with a pin, and close the two tiny holes

with wax. Then, when the time came for envenoming the

usual cardinal, He assiduously would pick out the wax, and,

by violent jerks and shaking, induce the venom to present

itself for application. If the venom were a liquid,

(M. Dumas' bear-juice for example,) the same process of

waxing up and pin-picking would be necessary.

But there was no venom known to the Boro-ia, or to

...
any other man or woman of that era, which would kill, with

as small a dose as would go in that ring. The venoms of

the Fifteenth Century were administered (when they were

administered) by the drachm, or by the ounce — not by the

grain. The recipes have been displayed here. To harbour

a fatal dose of the known venoms, such as Messer Giam-

battista della Porta describes, a monstrous and vast ring

would be needed, more gigantic than those bronze-gilt antdi

239

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

used as credentials by the pontifical couriers of the Lord
Pius P.P. II (1458-1464), N°^665 and 666 in the South
Kensington Collection, two and three-eighths, and two
inches, respectively, in diameter. The processes of brewing
and stewing, so dear to the mages, without any doubt were
a direct disposition of Providence for the security of human
life ; for they effectually withdrew the sting from venomous
substances, and made it perfectly impossible for would-be
murderers (and they were more than many) to kill, except
accidentally, or with enormous doses and the disadvantages
coincident thereto.

No doubt the Twentieth Century still has a little to
learn. No doubt that wisdom would wait upon research
among the mountains of documents stored in the archives
of the Italian patriciate and baronage, Colonna, (not Orsini,
whose papers were destroyed by fire in 1702) Savelli,
Poplicola di Santacroce, Sforza-Cesarini, Carafa, Caietani,
Piccolhuomini, Borgia of Milan and Velletri, etc. No
doubt in the Vatican Secret Archives (the Lord Alex-
ander P.P. VI left one hundred and thirteen volumes in
large folio of His acts,) infinite fields of information are
white for harvest. There is nothing to prevent the reaping,
but the lack of reapers. No doors are shut. No secrets
are reserved. "The Popes have need of nothing except
the truth."

Meanwhile, this only can be said.

The empirical methods of the Borgian Era preclude the
possibility of anything approaching artistic venenation.

Not one of the definite accusations against the Borgia
have been proved. On the contrary they are shewn to lack
valid foundation.

There is no authentic evidence regarding the Venom
that the Borgia are said to have employed.

In fact, there was no Venom of the Borgia.

240

Pontifex Maximus Alexander VI et Princeps

In reviewing the Pontificate of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
notice must be taken of the fashion which represents Him
as having been in continual fear of deposition on account
of the simony by which He is alleged to have bought the
papal power. It already has been shewn that no law
existed, which made simony an annulment of election
to ecclesiastical benefices, until the reign of the Lord
Julius P.P. II. It remains to be considered whether
the distribution of ofiices, with which the Lord Alex-
ander P.P. VI signalized his election, in any case would
give colour to the charge of simony.

The Conclave for the election of a Pope begins with
the Mass of the Holy Spirit chaunted in the Chapel of
St. Gregory. Afterwards, the cardinals go in procession,
singing Veni Creator Spiritus, to take possession of the
cells which they will have to occupy. These cells are
erected in a hall of the Vatican, communicating with the
Xystine Chapel. They are mere frameworks of wood hung
with fringed curtains of baize, green in the cases of
cardinals who are creatures of previous pontiffs ; violet in
the cases of cardinals who are creatures of the pontiffs just
deceased. On the front of each cell is a curtained doorway
over which the armorials of the occupant are shewn, sur-
mounted by a little swinging window. Each cardinal has
a bed, a table, and a chair. His attendants support life in
discomfort as best they may. Three hours after avemmaria,
all doors and windows communicating with the outer world
are walled up. Guards on the outside watch every avenue
of access, under command of the Hereditary Marshal of
the Church, now Prince Chigi, then Prince Savelli. To

241 Q

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

every cardinal are allowed two conclavists for his attendants,
a chaplain and an esquire. A cardinal-prince, or one aged
and infirm, may add a third. In addition to the cardinals and
the conclavists, there are enclosed a sacristan with his sub-
sacristans, a secretary with his undersecretaries, five masters
of ceremonies, a confessor, two physicians, a chirugeon,
two barbers, an apothecary, with their respective boys, a
mason, a carpenter, and servants for menial work. Great
care is taken that none of these lay-persons should be
agents of the orators of the secular powers ; and they are
made to swear a stringent oath of secrecy. As a matter of
fact, they are not allowed to know anything of the pro-
ceedings in the Xystine Chapel. Meals are served at stated
hours, through a revolving cupboard (ruota) in the outer
wall, supervised by cardinals-inspectors. Flagons are of
bare glass, lumps of bread or meat are cut open, that no
messages from the outer world may pass in by these means.
Nor may any single thing pass out. Urgent private letters
written in the Conclave are subject to cardinals-censors.
Cardinals, who have need, may speak to visitors, but in
presence of witnesses ; and all communication must be
open, and in a language that all can understand. These
interviews take place at a window, the cardinal being on
the inside, his visitor on the outside : but the conclavists
and others are forbidden to approach the window on any
pretext whatever.

In the Xystine Chapel, at the moment of the election,
the cardinals alone are ocular and auricular witnesses of
what takes place. Certainly all proceedings are recorded
in the Acts of the Conclave. But the original acts of the
Conclave that elected the Lord Alexander P.P. VI are not
forthcoming : they very likely were lost in the Sack of
Rome in 1527, when the Catholic Catalans and Lutheran
Goths of the Elect-Emperor Don Carlos V gambled in the
ofutters for nuns and for the wives and daughters of Roman

o o

citizens. This then is the situation. All accounts of the
Conclave of 1492, including the dispatches of Orators to
their respective governments, are based on hearsay, or
popular rumour. Historians have no other material ; for
there is none.

242 *

Pontifex Maximus Alexander VI et Princeps

The cry of simony always is raised at every election of
a Pope. It is only an exemplification of the law that
Attraction and Repulsion are Primary Forces. That the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI on His election did strip Himself
of His new palace, and of His multitudinous benefices,
cannot be denied. Why need it be denied ? It always is
done ; for a cardinal who is elected Pope has no more need
of these things: he leaves them with his scarlet and ermine
cappamagna when He is endued with the plain white frock
of Christ's Vicar. The giving away of His cast-ofT goods
and offices cannot be twisted into an act of simony, unless
there is a distinct stipulation that they are given and taken
as the price of a vote. And no such distinct stipulation is
extant. It is difficult to see why cardinals should be con-
sidered likely to be guilty of such degeneration. As a class
of men they stand high : they generally are possessed of
illustrious birth ; they generally are possessed of such
enormous wealth as to place them beyond the range of
pecuniary temptation ; and invariably they are men of
merit, the fine fiower of their profession. As far as
mundane honours go, they have tasted all the glory that the
world can ofTer, except one glory. No layman may kneel
on the same bench with a cardinal, unless he be a reio-ninof
sovereign. No layman may make a fourth in a carriage
containing three cardinals, not even a reigning sovereign.
Their rank places them far above peers or princes. They
are not eligible for the Athenaeum Club, but nothing that
the world can offer will improve their position except the
Papacy; yet they are suspected, as a class, of intrigues and
cabals of the basest kind, mere financial operations ; and
rarely, very rarely, is there any ground for the suspicion,
the prize for which they are said to struggle generally
being beneath their notice, the petty advantage which they
are thought to desire being unworthy even of their con-
tempt ; for cardinals are tired men, tired of splendour, tired
of the earthly things ; and they are not invariably vile.

When, therefore, the absurd people who wish to prove
simoniacal the election of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, or
the stupid craven Catholics who fatuously think to con-
ciliate by joining rabidly in the hue and cry against a Pope,

243

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

can show a definite declaration from one or more of the
cardinals-assistant of the Conclave of 1492, couched in
some such terms as these, " / acknowledge and confess that,
seduced by the dignities and the money that he offered me, (or,
intimidated by the menaces of Cardinal Rodrigo de Lanqol
y Bcrja,) T allowed 77tyself to be coi^rupted ; and, against
7ny will and better knowledge, I sold my vote to this unworthy
cardinal : or, / declare that I have resisted all his pro-
m-ises, threats, and flatteries, and firmly have refused to
sell my vote to Cardinal Rodrigo de Langol y Borja : then,
and only then, can this silly or malicious calumny be said
to have any foundation in fact.^

One thing is perfectly certain. The Lord Alexan-
der P.P. VI, Who really was the last man in the world
a vS" encanailler, never behaved as though He had gained
the Triregno by illegitimate means. Not when all Europe
yelped around His footstool did He blench or quail or
shew a sign of fear. The heathen raged ; and the people
imagined a vain thinof. The kino-s of the earth set them-
selves ; and the rulers took counsel together. The Monarchs
of Naples nagged ; the Catholic King and Queen de-
nounced ; the Christian Kings minced, grimaced, and
gibbered ; Caesar Semper Augustus protested ; Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere raved and nursed sedition ; the
barons of Rome revolted ; the dukes and tyrants and
republics of Italy took up arms; the dominions of the
Pope's Holiness were invaded ; the Eternal City suffered
violence ; the sacrosanctity of the pontifical person was in im-
minent danger : but the invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI
magnificently retired into the Mola of Hadrian, the only
spot in all Christendom where His rule remained ; and
held His Own, inflexibly, implacably, with an enormous
dignity impossible in one who was a mere usurper, a venal
simoniac. So much is sure. The demeanour of the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI in direst straits, was the demeanour of
a man who had no doubt regarding his own integrity.

-tP w -7p

The so-called scandals of His private life are shewn to
have been based upon the malice or the idle gossip of His

^ Cf. Maricourt.
24+

Pontifex Maximus Alexander VI et Princeps

enemies. He sat in " the fierce light that beats upon a
throne." He was the father of a family. He was not the
first or the last Pope Who has been the father of a family.
His immediate predecessor, the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII,
admitted the paternity of seven children. A successor, the
Lord Paul P.P. Ill, also used Himself in a similar manner :
nor are these all. If this be vicious, it was only vicious in
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI because He was the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI ; for in other men the same thing was,
and is, tolerated, accepted, applauded. A patrician or a
plebeian may steal a horse : but a Pope may not look over
the wall. I lie crucem scelci'is pretiuin tulit, hie diade^jia}
However, as a father. He exhibited an illustrious example
of paternal virtue. He was kind, loving, affectionate to
his children ; solicitous and self sacrificing for their welfare
and advancement. That He employed His spiritual
power, to build up the temporalities of His family, was a
temptation, to avoid which He would need to have been
more than human. It was the custom of the time. It was
an imperious necessity of the situation.

# # #

The murders and venenations of which He has been
accused, in company with Duke Cesare, fail of proof; and
indeed His guiltlessness as instigator, principal, or accom-
plice, appears in every case to be beyond question.

The murder of Don Juan Francisco de Lan9ol y Borja,
Duke of Gandia, remains a mystery : but what evidence
there is distinctly points to a vendetta of Orsini directed
against the Pope through His Captain- General.

The murder of the Prince of Bisceglia is referable
rather to a vendetta of Sanseverini and Caietani, than to
the Pope or Duke Cesare (detto Borgia).

The deaths of Don Astorgio and Don Gianevangelista
Manfredi are susceptible of the Venetian Orator's explana-
tion, puto mat san ; there positively is nothing to connect
the Pope or the Duke with them.

The death of the Sultan Djim was due to natural
causes, while he was in the hands of the Christian King ;

^ Decii Junii Juvenalis, Satura xiii.
245

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

and the Pope's Holiness was a pecuniary loser (to the
extent of about ^80,000 a year) by his death.

The death of Cardinal Orsini was due to natural causes,
according to the sworn testimony of physicians provided by
the House of Orsini.

Fra Girolamo Savonarola O.P. was executed on a
capital charge by due process of law ; and the Pope was an
unwillinof accent for the administration of that law.

(The crime of Fra Girolamo really was that of intriguing

with a foreign power with which his country was at war.

General Booth committing treachery with Mr. Kruger, or Mr.

Ira D. Sankey with the Son of Heaven Kwang Su, would be

. Twentieth-Centuryparallels of Savonarola andCharlesVH I.)

Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore) died a
natural death.

Messer Ramiro d' Oreo, Don Vitellozzo Vitelli, and
Don Oliverotto da Fermo had a legal trial by court-martial,
and paid the legal penalty of crime.

Don Paolo and Duke Francesco Orsini of Gravina
suffered merited death, due to the exigencies of civil war in
which they and their House were the aggressors.

There remain two other violent deaths to be accounted
for, which were not of sufficient importance to treat of in
the history of this pontificate, the case of Calderon Perotto,
and that of Messer Francesco Trocces.

It is said by Don Paolo Capello, the Orator of Venice,
in his Diarium, (or rather in that edition of the said
Diarium which was prepared forty years later by Don
Marino Sanuto,) that Calderon Perotto was a Spanish lad
of eighteen years, one of the Pontifical pages ; and that he
was stabbed by Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) at the Pope's
feet. The fact is related without comment or explanation.
It would not be safe to attach much importance to the
statement, because Don Paolo Capello's original document
is not forthcomings and Don Marino Sanuto's version of
what he wrote is the only version accessible. But the
alleged murder of the page Perotto is not, like other
calumnies, a posthumous invention ; for it is mentioned in
the atrocious Letter to Silvio S^z^^/// described on an earlier
page. The Pope is not, and was not blamed. The murder,

246

Pontifex Maximus Alexander VI et Princeps

if it were a murder at all, is attributed to Duke Cesare
(detto Borgia) ; and it was not an unusual thing for a lord
to slay a servant in the Borgian Era. That was common
enough ; but to do it in the presence of the Holiness of the
Pope certainly was sacrilege ; and this last circumstance
makes it probable that the whole story is a pure invention ;
for the guilt of sacrilege lightly was not incurred even by
the most bloody and abandoned villains : and Duke Cesare
was not of that species.

The other death, that of Messer Francesco Trocces is
more probable, and mentioned in several dispatches of
Orators. He was a papal chamberlain (confidential flunkey
of the cloak and sword, — minor situation dear to petits
Tnaitres of the English and Keltic bourgeoisie now ;) and
was employed as governmental courier. The Republic of
Venice was playing fast and loose with the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI, disliking to see Duke Cesare's amazing success in
the Romagna; and its Orator, Don Antonio Giustiniani
carried on relations of a doubtful kind with Messer Francesco
Trocces, in the usual manner of ambassadors who find that
they can buy state-secrets from a "crapule." Suddenly,
Messer Francesco fled from Rome to Civita Vecchia. He
had been complaining to the Venetians about Duke Cesare ;
and all his treachery had come to light. The Duke's steel
claws were far-reaching. The traitor was captured there
and brought to Rome, strangled, and his body hanged on
Tor Savelli as an example to others of his kind. Legally
speaking he was executed for the crime of high treason ;
and the formal exposure of his corpse gives the lie to the
idea of clandestine assassination. The practice of secret
trials and summary executions is odious to the Twentieth
Century : but, in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth, not only all
civilized governments, but even barons who had power of
life and death over their retainers, used these means as a
matter of course ; and that alone should be sufficient to
exonerate the Borgia from blame.

It has been said of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI that
He habitually envenomed his cardinals, that He might
have their goods. The following story is given, not in
this connection, by Mr. F. Marion Crawford, and is here

247

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

inserted on account of its frequent significance. At the
corner of the Via Lata in the Corso of Rome, is the Palazzo
Doria Pamphili, a typical Roman palace of the Borgian
Era, two-thirds the size of the Vatican Basilica, and able to
accommodate a thousand inhabitants. It was built by-
Cardinal Santorio (?), who bought the site from the Chapter
of Santa Maria Maggiore, and expended thousands of gold
ducats in the erection of a House Beautiful. All through
the reigns of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and of the Lord
Pius P.P. Ill, he remained in unmolested possession : but
during the pontificate of the Lord Julius P.P. II (Giuliano
della Rovere) the Pope's Holiness said to him that his palace
was "more suitable for a secular duke than for a prince of
the Church" ; and forced him to make Him a free gift of it
for His Own nephew Don Francesco della Rovere, whom
He had created Duke of Urbino. The unfortunate Cardinal
Santorio died soon after of a broken heart. It was not
Borgia who caused his death, in order to have his palace :
but Borgia's eternal enemy.

* * #

As a secular sovereign, no contemporary of His even
deserves to be named in comparison with the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI. His reign broke the back of the turbulent
ambitious selfish baronage which had ravaged the papal
states for centuries. He was an independent Pope ; willing
to enter into alliances, it is true, so long as they served His
purpose : but just as willing to throw over His allies and
stand alone upon occasion. If His interests leaned more
in one direction than another, it may be taken that He was a
Sforza + Cesarini Pope, rather than a creature of Colonna
or Orsini as the custom was. His political policy entirely
was directed to the substitution of peace and order with
security of life and property, instead of the anarchy and
desolation which He saw on His accession. He fully lived
up to His official title of Ruler of the World; and the
sovereigns of Europe at all times found Him sternly
rigorously just, amenable neither to fear nor flattery. He
was an admirable Father of Princes and of Kings.
Notwithstanding all that weakly has been said to the
contrary, the Holy Roman Church and Christendom owe

248

Pontifex Maximus Alexander VI et Princeps

a vast debt of gfratitude to Him. He found feebleness and
war and tumult at His coming : at His going He left behind
Him differences removed, rebellions quelled, and a tradition
of consolidated strength. He was the Fosterer of Justice
and of Peace. He was a great and wise Princeps.
# * *

As Pontifex Maximus, Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ
OUR Saviour, He merits reverent admiration. His habits and
tastes were of the simplest kind, in an age of singular luxury.
He was temperate in His diet ; and the Orators of the Powers
commented with disgust upon the fact that He never had
more than one dish upon His table. He slept but little.
His amusements occupied a mere fraction of His time :
but, during recreation. He unbent His awful dignity, and
enjoyed Himself with the frank abandon of a school-boy.
He was a patron of painters : but men of letters incon-
tinently drove their pens against Him ; for the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI was confronted by the problem of
dealing with a new enemy to Christ's flock and to civiliza-
tion— He had to regulate the printing-press in the interest
of morals; and, as a duty of His office, He ordained
the censorship of printed books, He inaugurated the
^' Imprimatur," He "muzzled the printer's devil."

Yet He was a gentle and kindly-affectioned Shepherd.
In 1492, the Jews were expelled from Spain. He enter-
tained them in security in Rome. In 1494, He was horrified
by news of the diabolical atrocities of the Grand Inquisitor
of Spain ; and, though He Himself was a Spaniard, He
appointed four assessors with equal power, to restrain the
excesses of Torquemada. The Spanish Inquisition never
had the countenance of Rome, but Her bitterest opposition.
The wanton ingenious cruelty of that infamous Tribunal was
due to the fiendish strain of African black blood which
tinges and defiles the bluest blood of Spain ; and was com-
mitted in explicit defiance of the commands of God's Vice-
gerent. It is true that He gave America to Spain, and
Africa to Portugal. ^ The Bulls of Donation shew that He

1 Have these Bulls been rescinded ? If not, it is possible that they form
the ground of the dull and bitter and radical animosity of Spain and Portugal
to Anglo- Saxondom of the present day. In the light of these Bulls, England
and America are usurpers and excommunicate !

249

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

considered it to be the Pope's duty to teach the Gospel to all
nations, and to compel the observance of natural laws. He
believed that, before the heathen could hear the Gospel, or
observe those laws, it was necessary to make them subjects
of a Christian Power. He knew that conquest makes more
converts in one day, than preaching in three hundred years.
He took as abruptly practical and business-like a view of
things as though He had been fortunate enough to have been
born an Englishman. And He acted upon the extremely
scriptural principle that civil rights and civil authorities law-
fully cannot obstruct the propagation of the Faith. None
knew better than He that the Treasure was in an earthen
vesseP: but, as the chief bishop of the Church far above all
principality and power and might and dominion,'^ He spoke,
exhorted, and rebuked, with an authority. Let no man des-
pise Him.^ There was no other representative of Chris-
tianity ; there was no other, in all the world, who even
claimed to be the representative of Christianity, at that
time. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, magnificent and
invincible, was the only one. Let no man despise Him.

As Pastor, He was merciful ; as Judge, severe and just.
His laws against witchcraft and Black Magic were of the
most stringent kind. He used the means which every
other sovereign of Europe also used. "East of Suez, some
hold, the direct control of Providence ceases ; Man being
there handed over to the power of the Gods and Devils of
Asia — " the most observant of modern English writers says.
Men who have lived in the Far East, where Christian
influence is very feeble, will recognize the singular correct-
ness of Mr. Rudyard Kipling's theory. Men, also, who
at first hand have studied modern recrudescences of deviL
worship, modern flirtations with kakodaimoniacal agencies,
the Luciferianism of modern France, will not mutter with
patronizing superiority of superstitions and old wives' fables ;
but perfectly well will know that hideous abnormity with
which the Pope's Holiness had to deal. Only the wilfully
ignorant deny the actuality of diabolic manifestations, called
witchcraft and Black Magic in the vulgar tongue. The

^ Ep. II to Cor. ii. 7. ^ Ep. to Eph. i. 21.

^ Ep. to St. Titus ii. 15.
250

Pontifex Maximus Alexander VI et Princeps

ostrich who buries her head in sand is Hke to these. By
the side of high civiHzation there always runs the impulse
to savagery, the weird and radical decadence which wanders
on dark paths. Hellas and Rome pried into the mysteries
of Isis ; Christendom entertains Turlupins, Rosicrucians,
Indian gumnosophists, and Mahatmas ; the Borgian Era
played with the Roaring Lion ; the Victorian Era with
Sathanas and his sorrows. "Perhaps", " after all ", "audi
alteram partem ", — hesitation, compromise, want of defined
principle, lack of courageous singleness of mind, — amounting
to Emasculation — is the mental note of the Twentieth
Century. The Fifteenth had not a tithe of the know-
ledge now possessed : but it was awfully convinced, strong,
and decisive, within its limitations. Then, there was no
place for the palterer — except against the wall.

Other malefactors felt the flail which, like Osiris, He
wielded equally with the crook. Notaries of the Pontifical
Briefs debauched by the undisciplined rule of previous Popes,
had become corrupt. In the absence of restraint they
habitually forged briefs nominating to benefices, not only in
Italy, but in all Christian countries. The ambition of German
clergy created the demand. The flagitious notaries managed
the supply. They sold their forged briefs privately to whoso
would pay the price, and they pocketed the proceeds of this
nefarious traffic. In 1497, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI
found them out. Some promptly were broiled on Campo
di Fiori, the nineteenth of October ; one, the Lord Arch-
bishop of Cosenza, and three secretaries, deprived of their
benefices and degraded from their clerical estate, solemnly
were immured alive in the Mola of Hadrian. These
miserable criminals lived some years in their solitary cells,
as the custom was, literally feeding on the bread of tears
and the water of affliction until they died. [Biirchard,
Diarhwt.) One has heard fables of nuns immured. Here is a
fairly genuine case of an immured archbishop. Immuration
is the same punishment which the Twentieth Century
metes out in countries where capital punishment has been
abolished : — solitary confinement ; — nothing more. The
archbishopric of Cosenza was conferred on Cardinal Fran-
cisco de Borja, bastard of the Lord Calixtus P. P. III.

251

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

The assiduous attention to the duties of His office which
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI exhibited is perfectly astound-
ing ; and pregnant with indubitable signification.

He reformed the monasteries of Austria, and the secular
clergy of Portugal. He confirmed the Rule of the Religion
of Friars Minim, founded by San Francesco da Paola. He
approved the Rule of the Third Order of Friars Minor,
founded by San Francesco d' Assisi. He permitted Madame
Jean de Valois to found her Religion. In 1499, He con-
firmed the Rule of the Jesnats of San Girolamo, a congre-
gation of laymen leading a religious communal life under
the Rule of St. Aurelius Augustine, nursing the sick, and
distilling aquavitae, (as Carthusians distil Chartreuse, yellow
and green, now.) He founded and confirmed in Rome the
Order of Military Knights of St. George, for the defence of
Christendom against the Muslim Infidel. He granted
privileges to the College at Windsor : (Chapter of St.
George, or King Henry VI Plantagenet's Foundation at
Eton ?) He approved the Order of Praying Knights of
St. Michael in France. He reformed the Order of Military
Knights of Christ in Portugal. He canonized no saints.
His personal piety was simple, diligent, and real. He
greatly revered the Deipara, the Blessed Virgin Mary. In
her honour. He ordained the bell which rings at sunset,
sunrise, and noon, for the Ajigehis Domini in memory of
The Incarnation. On His death-bed, He said, "We
"always have had, and have, a singular affection for the
"Most Holy Virgin."

In the Secret Archives of the Vatican, (merely a
technical term, for they are open to all the world,) His
original acts are preserved ; the veritable Briefs and Bulls
which He laboured to utter during His reign. They are
bound in one hundred and thirteen large-folio volumes,
each tome containing about ten thousand separate docu-
ments.^ To understand what kind of thing is a Papal Bull
or Brief, the Epistles of St. Peter, which are easily acces-
sible, may be mentioned as the best examples extant ; —
earnest disquisitions, simple or scholarly, dealing authori-
tatively with subjects the most vital. The Lord Alex-

^ Rene, Comte de Maricourt, who quotes M. L'Abbe Morel in L'Ufiivers.

252

Pontifex Maximus Alexander VI et Princeps

ander P.P. VI is responsible for more than a million of
these ; and He only reigned eleven years.

The days and nights appreciably were not longer then
than now. Where, then, did the Lord Alexander P.P. VI

FIND the time to ACCOMPLISH THE MULTIFARIOUS TURPITUDES
WITH WHICH He has BEEN CHARGED?

He was the father of bastards. He was not the first or
last, — plebeian, patrician, potentate, or pontiff.

He was inflexible to foes. Was ever peace assured
except by a stern martinet ?

The Lord Alexander P.P. VI was a very great Prince,
a very faithful Pastor, a very human Man.

By members of that Church, at least, which He so ably
ruled. He should be regarded as above and beyond criticism
(so-called), amenable to no judge, ecclesiastical, or secular.^

For the rest — the dwellers in glass houses

tF ^ w

^ When it becomes a question of blaming a priest or a Pope, the principle
of proportion demands that the lesser should bear. Two modern Roman
Catholics have presumed with "unctuous rectitude" to scold the Holiness of
the Pope as follows :

" From a Catholic point of view, it is impossible to blame Alexander too
severely." — (History cf the Popes. Pastor + Antrobus. VI. 139.)

This inhuman pronouncement is saved by the " a." Comment is needless :
but there is another " Catholic point of view."

253

sparks that Die

" A fire, that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays
hold on the faggots; bursts into a roaring blaze, with raging
tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks
that die."

On the death of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Duke Cesare
de Valentinois della Romagna was the most potent person-
age in Italy. Several of his veteran legions under Don
Michelotto held the Eternal City. Usually, during the
Novendiati after a Pope's demise, armed bands of Colonna
and Orsini pervaded the streets, to intimidate the Conclave
with their war-cries Cohunn — Coluni7i — , Bear — Bear — .
In August and September 1503, the baronial partizans
were dumb ; and all Rome shouted Duca — Diua — Duca —
for Duke Cesare. He might have done anything that he
pleased.

Now, if Duke Cesare were the ambitious ruthless
impious despot and villain which a fashion has painted him,
he must also have been a fool ; in that he did not force the
Sacred College to raise another Borgia to Peter's Throne.
There were three Borgia cardinals ready to his hand, all
quiet and malleable and inoffensive, and two of them aged
men ; viz.,

(o) the Lord Luis Juan de Milay Borja, Cardinal-Prior-
Presbyter of the Title of Santi Quattro Coronati
and Bishop of Lerida ; first cousin and contem-
porary of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI :

(/3) the Lord Francisco de Borja, Cardinal-Presbyter of
the Title of San Nereo e Sant' Achilleo, Arch-
254

sparks that Die

bishop of Cosenza ; bastard of the Lord Calix-
tus P.P. Ill:
(-y) the Lord Pedro Luis de Borja y Lancol, Cardinal-
Deacon of Santa Maria in Via Lata ; son of the
late Pope's sister Dofia Juana de Borja by her
marriaee with her cousin Don Guillelmo de
Lancol.

The last was a young man, a contemporary of Duke
Cesare himself, and appears to have been of a modest and
retiring disposition. Whether his youth would have taken
fire at being crowned with the Triregno, is an open question.
He was not elected, and is numbered with the sparks that
die. The Cardinal de Mila had resided nearly half a
century at his bishopric in Spain ; and was completely out
of touch with his Italian relatives, as well as with the
Sacred College.

But Cardinal Francisco de Borja seems to have been an
ideal nominee for the purpose of Duke Cesare. He owed
his rank to the Lord Alexander P.P. VI. He was of the
age of sixty-two years, a gentle old gentleman of placid
nature, of sweet and lovable habits, easily plastic. If he
had been elected Pope by the influence of Duke Cesare,
the consolidation of the Borgia Dynasty would have been
an accomplished fact. Theoretically, it matters not a jot
who may be the Pope, Caius or Balbus, Peter or Paul. If
there be any basis for the claims of the Holy Roman
Church, Her mission goes on till the world's end, as well
and as inevitably when Borgia, as when Pecci, reigns; as
well an'i as mevitably under Boys of the age of twelve and
eighteen years, like the Lord Benedict P.P. IX and the
Lord John P.P. XII, as under Saints, like the Lord St.
Sylvester P.P. and the Lord St. Fabian P.P. ; as well and
as inevitably under a Jew, like the Lord St. Peter P.P. as
under an Englishman like the Lord Hadrian P.P. IV.
The personality of God's Vicegerent is of no consequence
whatever to the purity of rhe Faith, or to the triumph of the
Holy Roman Church These things being so, it is hard to
understand why Duke Cesare did not menace with his
unconquerable army the Sacred College, or assassinate

255

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

samples of the cardinals w'lio should decline to vote at his
direction ; until, by ultimate intimidation, he should have
secured the election of his candidate. If he had been the
godless wretch that his enemies designated, he would have
achieved some such co//>o di stato as this.

But, in the role of an unconscionable villain, Duke
Cesare was a failure — an accented failure. Contrariwise,
he comported himself as exemplarily as any good and pious
Catholic. Most likely his fever, or the murderous remedies
of his physicians, was responsible for this. There is no
doubt but that the scheme for a Borgia Dynasty had been
adumbrated ; and that this was the psychological moment
for giving it concrete expression : but the death of the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI, and Duke Cesare's own illness came
with sobering effect to him ; and his course of action may
be translated thus — that he resolved not to usurp the pre-
rogative of the Supreme Disposer of events. For a villain,
the resolve was weak : but it was what was to be expected
of a splendid man of sense.

Duke Cesare knew that he held his riches, his supre-
macy, his titles of Duke of Romagna, Gonfalonier of the
Holy Roman Church, and Castellan of Santangelo, solely
at the pleasure of the Pope ; yet he made no effort to secure
the election of a Pope who would confirm his possession of
them. There is still in existence a ring of his, (they call it
a " Poison-Ring " — but of that much has been said — )
which bears the splendid motto

Fays ceque doys avien que pourra
Do thy duty, coine what 7?iay.
That principle informed his action now. Duke Cesare did
his duty.

He renewed his feudal oath of allegiance in the presence
of the Sacred College. He formally recognized the supre-
macy, during the interregnum, of the Cardinal- Dean and the
Cardinal-Chamberlain. He divested himself of the sem-
blance and reality of power, by relinquishing the Mola
of Hadrian (which impregnable fortress he held as Castellan
of Santangelo, and whence he could have overawed both
the Vatican and Rome). Further, finding that the mere
presence of his army in the City was considered disrespectful

256

Sparks that Die

to the Conclave, he retired it to his province of the
Romagna ; and he himself withdrew to France to his
duchy of Valentinois.

So, the Conclave of 1 503 met in absolute freedom ; and
elected, as Successor of St. Peter, Ruler of the World,
Father of Princes and of Kings, and Earthly Vicar of Jesus
Christ our Saviour, the Lord Francesco de' Piccolhuomini,
Cardinal Archdeacon of Sant' Eustachio, Archbishop of
Siena, who deigned to be called the Lord Pius P. P. Ill,
in memory of His august uncle, the Lord Pius P. P. II ^
Who had reigned from 1458 to 1464.

Then momentous events came thick and fast. The new
Pope, on His coronation in St. Peter's, graciously permitted
Duke Cesare to return to Rome. Such a mighty and
splendid vassal as he was naturally inspired fear and distrust
among the clergy. Such a trenchant weapon as he
possessed in his unconquerable veteran army was described
as a danger to the papacy. It is always very hard to make
the clergy understand that a laic can be as sentimental and
conscientious and self-sacrificing as a clerk. The word was
put about that, seeing the Romagna to have been reduced
to order, the necessity for Duke Cesare 's army had ceased
to be. Naturally, the clergy could not be expected to
understand the necessity for an "army of occupation."
The first rumour speedily grew into the statement that
Duke Cesare's army was to be disbanded.

Colonna and Orsini heard, in their ugly exile, in their
battered fortresses. Like the chained wolves on the Capitol
who know when rust makes thin their fetters, they lifted
up their horrid heads and waited till the ultimate link should
part. If Duke Cesare's army were disbanded, thousands
of condottieri would be at large, brigands ready to take
service under a new chief, under any banner. Why not
under the banners of the Column and the Bear ? Colonna
and Orsini in alliance, reinforced by those same unconquer-
able mercenaries might recover their old position, and once
more become the strong right and left hands of a feeble
Pope of their own ; and then the days of the hated Borgia
would be numbered. Colonna and Orsini, like their

^ Enea Silvio Bartolomeo de' Piccolhuomini.

257 ^ R

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

antipodes righteousness and peace, forgot their ancient
feud and each kissed other. Duke Cesare indeed was in
evil case.

And then, suddenly, after a pontificate of six and twenty
days, the Lord Pius P.P. Ill died.

This moment was the opportunity of the psychic epileptic,
the Lord Cardinal- Bishop Giuliano della Rovere, eternal
enemy of the House of Borgia. He had emerged from the
exile, which his innumerable treasons and malfeasances had
merited, in time for the election of the Lord Pius P.P. HI
during Whose short reign he had employed himself to his
own advantage. He had no friends. He gained the
loathinor of all with whom he had to do. The Sacred
College to a man was inimical to him. He was not wealthy.
He was thoroughly plebeian, he had no learning, no
diplomatic skill, no charm. And there, on the other hand,
was the splendid Duke Cesare, feared ; yes : but admired
also ; and his unconquerable army was within call. A
second time the election appeared likely to depend on him.

Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere was a desperate man.

The only advantage that he possessed was, that at this

time when all the other cardinals were in a state of nervous

perturbation at the unusual occurrence of the deaths of two

Popes in three months, he alone preserved his equanimity.

He alone knew what he wanted. His colleagues in the

Conclave were mentally collapsed : they shewed signs of a

liability to come under the influence of, to take advice, to

take even direction from any one who would tell them what

they wanted ; and chiefly from him who was the one strong

man of Italy, the man with the veteran army, Duke Cesare

de Valentinois della Romagna (detto Borgia). The strongest

laic is no match for an unscrupulous clerk when it comes to

wits. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere saw that he could

gain the Sacred College, by gaining Duke Cesare. He

concentrated all his crude rough desperate will on the one

point.

* * *

The historian Varillas, who writes as a violent upholder
of the Papacy, relates an extraordinary story ; which, if
true, is a veritable solution of mysteries ; which, in short, is

258

Sparks that Die

so strange, that it very likely is not fiction, historical or
otherwise, but the blind and naked Truth emerging from
her well unabashed, luciferous, and, naturally, unwelcome.

He says that Duke Cesare proposed to the Second
Conclave of 1 503 to elect a cardinal whom he should name :
that Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, becoming aware of
this, endeavoured to attract Duke Cesare's influence to
himself : that to this end the said Cardinal privately
announced to the said Duke that he was his father after
the manner of men, further alleging this to have been the
cause of his (the said cardinal's) enmity against the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI deceased : that the said Cardinal asked
the said Duke to assist him, his father, to gain the papal
throne, promising, in return for such assistance, after his
coronation with the Triregno, publicly to acknowledge the
said Duke as his son, to confirm him in possession of his
duchies and his conquests, and to retain him in all the offices
which he then held : that the said Duke believed the said
Cardinal, and by withdrawing from opposition, and by
exerting full influence in a filial manner, he had compassed
the election of the said Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere :
that after his election the said Cardinal had belied all his
promises, deprived the said Duke, of Umbria, and the
Romagna, and all the fiefs which he had won, and of all
the situations which he enjoyed, and finally had harassed,
despoiled, and exiguously persecuted, all who bore the
name of, or were connected with. The Borgia.

This is an extremely probable tale. Certainly a part of
it is true, and perhaps the whole.

The identity of the father of Duke Cesare (detto Borgia)
is involved in mystery.

The Brief of the Lord Xystus P.P. IV 1 dated the first
of October 1480, which dispenses Messer Cesare from the
necessity of proving his legitimacy, calls him " son of a
cardinal bishop and a married woman," de episcopo cardmali
genitus et coniugata.

The Brief of the Same, dated the sixteenth of August
1482, which makes Cardinal Rodrigo de Lan^ol y Borja

1 Secret Archives of the duchies of Ossuna and Infantado.
259

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

administrator of Messer Cesare's estate, calls the boy "son
of a cardinal bishop and a married woman," de episcopo
cardinali genitus et coniugata.

The name of this "cardinal bishop" is not given in
either Brief.

Most of the scribblers, diarists, chroniclers, orators,
speak of Don Cesare, Cardinal Cesare, and Duke Cesare,
as the son of Cardinal Rodrigo de Lan^ol y Borja (the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI). Some, like Peter Martyr and
Fioramondo Brugnolo call him " nephew of a brother of
our Lord the Pope." In his autograph letter to the
Pope, dated the sixteenth of January 1500, he himself
speaks of Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore),
(who was the son of Don Pedro Luis de Lancol y Borja,
own brother of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI) as "my
brother."

In no official document is he named as the son of
Cardinal Rodrigo de Lan9ol y Borja (the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI) : but the Venetian Senate, in conferring on him
the patriciate of that Republic in 1500, styled him " nephew
of Pope Alexander."

The Lord Alexander P.P. VI never called him "son" :
but, in an autograph Brief of recommendation addressed to
the Christian King Louis XII, He introduced Duke Cesare
as His " heart."

Duke Cesare's subscription of a letter, which he wrote
to the Pope on the twenty-eighth of January 1503, at the
time of the Orsini revolt, is very curious. He signed
himself " The most humble servant and most faithful
handiwork of Your Holiness." Vestrae Sanctitatis humil-
linius servus et devotisshjia factura. As cardinal he might,
and did, call himself the Pope's "creature," creatura: that
is the form. A son, however, is not " handiwork" in
any sense of the word : but a duke, who is made by his
sovereign's signature of his patent, precisely is.

The authorities, who call Duke Cesare " nephew," may
be dismissed. Popes, like other human beings, generally
have nephews stride dicte vel late.

His own appellation of Cardinal Giovanni Giuniore is
susceptible of the meaning "comrade."

260

Sparks that Die

And "factura" will bear reference to his duchy, gon-
falonierate, castellanship, etc.

Who then was the father of Duke Cesare ?

Madonna Giovanna de' Catanei (wife of Don Giorgio
della Croce, and, after his death, of Don Carlo Canale,) was
certainly his mother. Two official inscriptions bear witness
to this. The first, which was published by Signor Gnoli in
the Nuova Antologia of the first of February 1881, refers to
a house on Campo di Fiori which she left as an endowment
for anniversary masses for the repose of the souls of herself
and her two husbands named. The deed is the work of
Messer Andrea Caroso, Notary Public, and is dated the
fifteenth of January 15 17. In it she is called " Vanoza
Catanea madre del Duca Borge.'' The second is her epitaph
on her tomb in Santa Maria del Popolo (Forcella. Iscrizioni
delle chiese di Roma I. 335) shewing her natural pride at
finding herself the mother of two dukes, a prince duke, and
a sovereip'n duchess.

'fc>'

" Faustiae Cathanae, Caesare Valentiae, Joannae Candiae,
Jufredo Scylatii, et Lucretia Ferrariae ducib. filiis nobili
Probitate insigni religion! eximia pari et aetate et
Prudentiae optime de xenodochio Lateranen. Meritae
Hieronimus Picus fidei commis. procur. ex test (amento) pos (uit).
Vix(it) ann. LXXVI m. IV d. XIII. Objit anno M.D.XVIII. XXVI Nov."

In the absence of anything more authoritative than the
foregoing, the story of Varillas remains the most probable
solution of the mystery. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI
never named, never treated, Duke Cesare as His son ; never
shewed for him the paternal love and affection which He
shewed for his bastards, Don Pedro Luis, Madonna
Girolama, Duke Juan Francisco, Duchess Lucrezia, Prince
Gioffredo, Madonna Laura, Duke Giovanni. Yet Duke
Cesare was splendid and superb ; his abilities were immense,
and pre-eminently useful to the Pope. And the Pope used
him on all occasions as His most serviceable subject, reward-
ing him with lavish generosity for the service which he
rendered. Between the Duke and his Sovereign Patron,
there was a certain privileged and familiar confidence : but
never intimate relationship, or filial or paternal love.

261

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

The status of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere ; his
furious, blind, instinctive, and eternal hatred of the Lord
Alexander P.P. VI and of every one connected with Him,
is susceptible of an extremely human explanation. It bears
the strongest possible resemblance to that very singular and
very distinguishable passion of revengeful jealous rage which
consumes the vulgar man in regard to a superior (in rank,
breeding, or physique,) who shall have supplanted him in
the favours of a lady.

Cardinal Rodrigro and Cardinal Giuliano both were
cardinals and bishops at the time of the birth of Duke
Cesare. Cardinal Rodrigo had wealth, illustrious ancestry,
incomparable charm of manner, a sumptuous aspect. He
was magnificent and invincible. Cardinal Giuliano as a boy
had peddled onions in a boat between Arbisola and Genoa,
he had no money except the revenues of a few benefices, he
was of a saturnine habit of mind, repulsive to his fellow
creatures. His portraits, as cardinal on his medal by
Sperandio, as Pope by II Caradosso (Ambrogio Foppa),
shew him as a hatefully ugly man with satyr-brows, sunken
and bleared eyes, fierce but haggard mien, and the animal
appetites hugely predominant in the lips, the back of the
head, and the curious little muscles which obliquely tend
downward right and left in the region of the root of the
nose. In the age of the Discovery of Man, Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere's physique did not qualify him to
gain, or retain, the fidelity of any woman whom, inevitably,
he would hunger to possess.

Nothing is known against the character of Madonna
Giovanna de' Catanei except that she was the mistress, first
of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, second of Cardinal
Rodrigo de Lan^ol y Borja. A woman who indulges in
systematic adultery ajid sacrilege is liable to be as false to
her lovers, as she is to her husband and her God, at least
until she has repented of her crimes and sins, giving proof
of her repentance by surceasing from those same to lead a
godly righteous and sober life, as Madonna Giovanna did
during the whole reign of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI,
and especially in, and after, 1508, when she was converted,
together with Madonna Fiametta, a leman of Duke Cesare's,

262

Sparks that Die

by hearing Frat' Egidio da Viterbo preach the Lent in
Rome. But history and rumour agree in this, that with
the exception of these two separate intrigues lasting from
1473 to 1 48 1 Madonna Giovanna de' Catanei was " alioquin
proba mulier" as even the rascally Paulo Giovio says, (Vita
Gonsalvi 212) — otherwise, an honest woman.

It is humanly probable that Duke Cesare was the son of
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere by Madonna Giovanna de'
Catanei. He was born in 1474, "son of a cardinal bishop
and a married woman." The following year, 1475, the lady
bore to Cardinal Rodrigo de Lan^ol y Borja, Don Juan
Francisco; in 1478, Madonna Lucrezia ; in 1481, Don
Gioffredo. It is as humanly natural that, after the birth of
Duke Cesare, Cardinal Rodrigo should win the mother from
Cardinal Giuliano ; as that in 1492 he should win the
Triregno from him in full conclave. The two prelates were
antipathetic from heel to crown. There was bound to be
rivalry between them. The loss of the papal throne in 1492
would have embittered Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere : but,
by itself, hardly could have imparted that virulent vicious
smack to his revenge that made him agonize, during twenty
years, to dispossess and grind to powder the House of
Borgia. The introduction of the feminine element provides
a key to the enigma of that pettiness.

The narration of Varillas, therefore, deserves considera-
tion as a contribution to the solving of the mysteries of the
unquenchable hatred of Dellarovere for Borgia, and of
Duke Cesare's relations with the Lord Alexander P.P. VI.

Whatever the truth may be, it is circumstantially evident
that to Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna, his
advocacy or neutrality, his influence exercised or his
abstention from opposition. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere
owed his election in the Conclave of November 1503. He
chose to be called the Lord Julius P.P. II.; and He instantly
set about the ruin of the House of Boro-ia.

The three Borgia cardinals naturally did not vote for
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. Cardinal Luis Juan de
Mila y Borja did not deign to attend the Conclave : but
remained at his bishopric of Lerida in Spain. Cardinal

263

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Pedro Luis de Lan9ol y Borja, immediately after the
election, passed into voluntary exile in the Regno without
speaking to the Pope. Cardinal Francisco de Borja followed
the custom of his House in regard to the voting : but he
remained in Rome ; and no doubt hoped with his charming
innocent good nature that the Lord Julius P.P. would be
satisfied, would be appeased, now that the world had
nothing more to give Him. The Cardinal was bitterly
disappointed.

From Madonna Lucrezia's little boy, Duke Roderico,
His Holiness seized the duchy of Sermoneta ; and restored
it to the Caietani from whom it originally had been taken,
and who hold it still, a.d. 1901. (The present Duke of
Sermoneta also has the superb sword of state which Maestro
Ercole, the master-sword-smith of his age, had made to
carry before Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) when he officiated
as Cardinal Ablegate at the coronation of King Don
Federigo of Naples in 1497. It is a miracle of damascening
and design, a lesson to Twentieth-Century makers of
decorative swords who heap glories on hilt and scabbard,
and leave the blade to be hidden. Of this sword of Duke
Cesare's the blade is the soul. The sheath of plain embossed
leather is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.)

Then, the Lord Julius P.P. H demanded of Duke
Cesare the renunciation of his duchy of the Romagna.
That province was a fief of the Holy See ; and it was com-
petent for the Holiness of the Pope to deal with it at His
pleasure : but, seeing that to Duke Cesare's splendid
services, the Papacy practically owed the peace, the posses-
sion, the heftiness of the Romagna, heretofore a hell of
turbulent bandits, brigands and assassins who defied their
Over-lord to collect His revenues, — the demand of the
Lord Julius P.P. H at least was discouraging.

Duke Cesare, while willing to take the oath of allegiance
of a feudal vassal to the Prince, refused to relinquish the
fortresses of the Romagna which by conquest he had won,
and garrisoned with his veteran army, now disbanded by
the Judas wiles of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, and
re-enlisted under alien banners.

Whether the Lord Julius P.P. H had made, or had not

264

/■

u^-e^j -^- '^ -^ ■

Sparks that Die

made, promises before His election, He was now de iure
and de facto Ruler of the World, and absolutely despotic.
He arrested Duke Cesare in Rome ; and imprisoned him
as a rebel in the Borgia Tower. The utter and vacuous
helplessness of the Duke is in striking- contrast to the
masterful energy of all his previous life. Some enormous
mental shock might produce such degeneration ; the hideous
treachery of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere as related by
Varillas, for example. Duke Cesare behaved, in his mis-
fortune, like a son staggered, struck breathless and speech-
less by a revelation of a father's iniquity. A Bull of
Deprivation despoiled him of all fiefs and dignities held
from the Holy See, and confiscated all his personal property.
He literally was stripped naked. In 1504, he escaped from
Rome to Ostia in disguise, and thence to Naples. Here
he might have found a pied a terre ; and, with the splendour
of his past achievements, have won an opportunity of
recovering his lost estates by war : but the Lord J ulius P. P. H ,
conscious of the danger to His peace that such an aggrieved
and notable personality would be, had intrigued with the
Catholic King ; and, on Duke Cesare's arrival in the Regno,
he was re-arrested, and shipped to a new prison in the
castle of Medina del Campo in Spain.

The marriage of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia with Don
Alfonso d'Este was a most happy one. The sweet young
bride had made herself beloved by all Ferrara, from her
husband's father Duke Ercole to the meanest of his subjects,
by her beauty, her goodness, and her wonderfully able
versatility, three indispensable qualities in the wife of the
heir to the throne. Attired in "a mulberry satin gown
embroidered with gold fish-bones each two fingers broad,"
with the lace-flounce worth thirty thousand ducats (say
^60,000) which, according to Giovanni Lucido, was in her
wedding-chest, she would amuse herself in the ducal palace
by witnessing performances of the Casina or the Miles
Glortosus, comedies of Plautus. Sometimes, (as Sanuto,
the Venetian Orator at Ferrara, informed his government,)
she would remain all day in her apartments, writing letters,
and having her head washed : or she would sit for hours

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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

and listen to the violin-music of her adept young husband.
On the Maundy Thursday of the first year of her marriage^
she publicly washed the feet of one hundred and sixty poor
men. Her observance of religious duties was as notable as
the spirit of genuine piety which pervades her many letters
still extant.

On hearing of Duke Cesare's disgrazia, Madonna
Lucrezia earnestly wrote to the Marquess of Mantua, and
to her friend, sister-in-law, and confidante, the Marchioness
Isabella, begging them to use the influence of their House
of Gonzaga with the Lord Julius P.P. H to procure his
freedom. The times were out of joint for Este personally
to interfere ; for Madonna Lucrezia was stricken down with
the effects of an a/if^Xwaig, and the old Duke Ercole was
breathing his last sigh.

On the nineteenth of January 1505, the Lord
Julius P.P. II issued His notorious Bull against Simony;
striking a new blow at the House of Borgia, by the
aspersion cast upon the memory of the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI.

Duke Alfonso d'Este and his Duchess Lucrezia ascended
the throne of their duchy in due course ; and negotiations
with the Holiness of the Pope, for the enfranchisement of
Duke Cesare, might have been, and would have been
instituted : but, early in the spring of the year Ferrara was
threatened by famine, and the hands of the young sove-
reigns were entirely occupied. Had Duke Cesare been own
brother to the Duchess Lucrezia, perhaps more urgent steps
would have been taken : but she never seems to have
regarded him otherwise than as a half-brother, who was
her Father's most useful servant, and her mother's shame.
Duke Alfonso proceeded to Venice to buy food stuffs in
view of the famine, for the patriarchal rule obtained in
Ferrara ; and left the Duchess Lucrezia as Regfent of his
state. Her lovely womanly character may be seen in an
edict which she issued for the protection of Jews, who were
attacked and pillaged by Christians rioting for food ; and
in the sweet indignant letter, abounding in mis-spelt words
(as do all good and distinguished women's letters,) and
enjoining the Podesta (mayor) to be energetic about secur-

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ing to the Jews protection of their Hves and property
equally with the Christians.

When Duke Alfonso returned, after some months'
absence during which the Duchess sent him periodical and
frequent accounts of her regency, addressed " To the Most
Illustrious and Most Excellent Lord, My Most Honourable
Lord and Consort, These, with speed — speed — speed — " the
summer brought plague on the heels of famine. The visi-
tation was most severe. The unselfish exertions of the
Duke and Duchess were noble and untiring. The health
of the Duchess Lucrezia suffered ; and before the year was
over she grave birth to a dead child.

In 1506, Duke Cesare de Valentinois escaped from his
Spanish prison, and made his way into the neighbouring
realm of Navarre, where the King Jean d'Albret was
brother to his wife Madame Charlotte d'Albret, Duchess of
Valentinois. The events of the last three years had not
broken his splendid spirit. All his triumphs, all the results
of his strenuous energy and talent had been nullified for
him. At the age of thirty-three years he was despoiled of
his life's work, and was a ruined man. The Romagna for
ever was gone from him. His French duchy seems to have
been of small account. Still, he was not crushed, he had
the courage to begin again to carve out a career in a new
country ; and to this end he took service in the army of his
brother-in law King Jean of Navarre.

The Lord Julius P.P. II having decreed Himself and
His Successors to be the heir-at-law, next-of-kin, residuary
and sole legatee, of all cardinals, and of all clergy who die
within the walls of Rome, an era of sumptuous premortal
cenotaphs and sepulchres set in among the Illustrissimi
Colendissimi ed Osservantissimi Porporati, as well as among
the lesser ecclesiastical dignitaries ; to the end that as little
as possible of their riches, after their demise, should go to
the pontifical exchequer.

There is a codicil to the will of the Genoese mariner,
Messer Cristoforo Colombi of this date, the fourth of May
1506, by which the Inventor of America bequeathed to his

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native Republic of Genoa " the prayer-book which Pope
Alexander gave him ; and which, in prison, in conflict, and
in every kind of adversity, had been to him the greatest of
comforts." How simply bright a light does this incident
throw upon the relations of a great and good man with the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI !

The Lord Julius P.P. II was capable of doing without
Duke Cesare in the Romagna. The Pope's Holiness Him-
self was a man of war. Who found it consistent to wear
cuirass and casque on battlefields equally with pluviale and
triregno in the Vatican Basilica. Men called Him II Ponti-
Jice Ter7'ibile. "Give Us in Our hands no stupid book,
but a bare blade," He impatiently roared to the painter of
His portrait, now in the National Gallery. But Messer
Rafaele Sanzio, despite all his conventional macaronics, was
for once in his life artist enouo^h to omit both book and
blade, and to concentrate on the painting of the character
of those fierce vulgar insatiable empty hands gripping the
arms of the chair. And the Romagna found the whips of
Duke Cesare to be preferred before the scorpions of the
Lord Julius P.P. II. Perugia was the seat of the Baglioni.
Twenty years before, in 1487, there had been an outbreak
of the feud of Baglioni and Oddi, months of continual
rioting, the gutters running blood, the city like a slaughter-
house ; until Oddi was driven away, and Baglioni turned
the place into a fortress and the churches into barracks.
In 1 49 1, in another outbreak, Baglioni hanged a hundred
and thirty conspirators from the windows of the Palazzo
Communale in a single day ; and, (with the quick reversion
from carnage to piety which is a characteristic of the age,)
incontinently erected five and thirty altars in the public
square, and caused continuous masses to be said and pro-
cessions to be performed, to purify the city and to procure
repose for the souls of the slain. Duke Cesare made a
marked impression on these brigands, who learned to give
him little trouble : but, when he was dispossessed and his
lonor sword sealed in its scabbard, Bagrlioni took the bit
between their teeth and reared, refused tribute to their
sovereign Over-lord, and broke out in rebellion in the
customary manner. The Lord Julius P.P. II promptly

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raised an army which He led in person ; and reduced
Perugia. Without precautions for His safety, trusting to
the moral effect of His presence for the inviolability of His
sacrosanct person, He adventured Himself in the heart of
the rebel city, and beat Don Giampaolo Baglioni to his
knees. In a man of sensibility this hardihood would indi-
cate a very dare-devil : in the case of the Supreme Pontiff
a distinction must be made between courage and mere
plebeian callousness. Messer Niccolo Machiavelli sneered
at this miserable Don Giampaolo Baglioni, because he
lacked the boldness to strangle his unwelcome visitor, the
Lord Julius P.P. H, and so crown his life of crime with
a signal act of " Magnanimita " ! Certainly a man would
need some boldness to strangle the Pope, the Ruler of the
World, the Father of Princes and of Kings, the Earthly
Vicar of Jesus Christ our Saviour ! Certainly, a man who
would strangle in cold blood the Sovereign Poniiff coming
to him as his guest, unarmed, under a flag of truce, would
win fame, or infamy, for endless ages. But that such a
deed should deserve the epithet " magnanimous," should
be considered to be indicative of greatness of soul, is a
matter of opinion. Evidently the Twentieth Century
considerably has curtailed and straitened the signification
and the application which the word Magnanimity bore in
the Fifteenth. Now, we call a man magnanimous who, at
huge self-sacrifice, does noble deeds. Then, Messer Nic-
colo Machiavelli thought that startling actions, good, or
bad, proclaimed the greatness of their agent's soul !

The Lord Julius P.P. H was not without His flatterers.
No man is, if he can pay. Literary petits maitres like
Messer Baltassare Castiglioni found it profitable to address
the Terrible Pontiff in terms like these :

" O Pater, O Pastor populorura, O " O Father, O Shepherd of the people,,
Maxime mundi O Supreme

Arbiter, humanum qui genus Master of the world, AVho rulest all

omne regis ; the human race ;

lustitiae pacisque Dator placid- Giver of Justice, Peace, and tran-

aeque quietis, quil Ease,

Credita Cui soU est vita salusque Thou to Whom alone is committed
hominum ; the life and salvation of men ;

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chronicles of the House of Borgia

Quern Deus Ipse Erebi fecit caeli- Whom God Himself has made Lord

que potentem, of heaven and hell,

Ut nutu pateant utraque regno That either realm might open at Thy
Tuo ; — nod —

" When the spiritual authority of the Popes came thus to be expressed
in Latin verse, it was impossible not to treat them as deities. The temp-
tation to apply to them the language of Roman religion was too great ; the
double opportunity of flattering their vanity as pontiffs, and their ears as
scholars, was too attractive to be missed." '

The Terrible Pontiff, however, was no scholar, but an
unadulterated plebeian. It is true that He, as Cardinal-
Bishop of Ostia. bought that vastly over-rated piece known
as the Apollo of the Belvedere, when first it was discovered
at Porto d'Anzio (Antium). It is true that He bought, in
1 506, for six hundred gold crowns {?) the Laocoon, (which
Messer Michelanorelo Buonarroti saw unearthed in the
Baths of Titus,) to the supreme disgust of his " art-
adviser " who declared that the two sons of the Thymbraian
priest were not boys, but little men. It is true that He
bought the Ariadne (which He called Cleopatra), the Torso
of Herakles, and the Commodus, unearthed on Campo di
Fiori, and now in the Vatican. He did these things
because they were modish things to do in 1506. One
gained more Kvdog in the pose of a Sixteenth-Century
Maecenas, than as Successor of the Galilean Fisherman.
The plebeian pontiff of the Sixteenth Century was ashamed
of His plebeian predecessor of the First. The times were
changed, he argued, as the faithful vainly argue to excuse
prelatical vagaries now. He preferred competition with
"men of the world" to the cure of souls. He was quite
unable to appreciate intellect. He was congenitally in-
capable of appreciating the delicacy, or the validity, of
Letters. The plebeian chiefly is touched by way of the
sense of sight; and the Lord Julius P.P. II understood
naked statues, things which He could see : wherefore He
bought Apollo and Laocoon and the rest. There is not
the slightest credit due to Him for discrimination in His
purchases, or for a deliberate choice of what was beautiful.
Men happened to dig up those marbles in Roman territory

^ Symonds, J. A. Renascence, II. 493-5.
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Sparks that Die

just then. Any one could see them to be beyond the
ordinary. Any one could see them to be antiques. It
was the fashion to buy antiques ; and the Terrible Pontiff
bought — bought as retired grocers buy, who buy their
libraries by the cwt. Also, He had Messer Michelangelo
Buonarroti at His ankle, with whose advice it would have
been difficult for a sardonic goat to commit an artistic
blunder. They were a pair, those two, the artist and the
pontiff, uomini terribili, terrible men, both. Messer
Michelangelo had been educated at the expense of Lorenzo
de' Medici in the Palazzo Medici of Florence and the Villa
Medici of Fiesole. There, at the suggestion of Canon
Angelo Ambrogini (detto Poliziano), he had sculptured his
Battle of Herakles with the Centaurs, while listening to
Fra Girolamo Savonarola and Messer Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola surnamed the Phoenix of Genius {Fe7tice deo-li
iugegni.) Could any man but Poliziano have suggested a
more admirable subject for Michelangelo than this of weird
muscular gigantic energy? In 1500, in the reign of the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI, he had carved his lily-pure Pieta
of the Vatican Basilica, the most divinely pure present-
ment of God's Maiden Mother, of the MijrpoTrap^evoe,
save those of Alessandro Filipepi (detto Botticelli) since
Byzantine art had faded. Now, he was in Rome, "art-
adviser " to the Terrible Pontiff, eating his own heart in
inactivity, burning and yearning to work with his own
hands, with all the passionate excruciating torture suffered
by every artist who may not put his talent "out to the
exchangers." It was the lust of creation in Michelangelo
that made him terrible to his fellow men. His incivi-
lities to his colleagues are proverbial. " Goffo nell' arte "
he flung with contemptuous scorn to Messer Pietro di
Cristoforo Vanucci of citti della Pieve (detto Perugino)
who had a picture-shop at Florence, and bought estates
with the proceeds of his smooth and stony saints and
seraphs, stencilled by his pupils on the canvases, and
touched by himself in his workshop or picture-factory at
Perugia, at the very time when Oddi and Baglioni each
were tearing the other's throats to tatters outside his door.
Then in 1508 the Lord Julius P.P II ordered Messer

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chronicles of the House of Borgia

Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Xystine Chapel.
The gods on high Olympos never allow a man to do the
thing that he wants to do : they are jealous lest a man
should create a god. Messer Michelangelo wanted to
practise sculpture ; wherefore he was told to paint a ceiling.
"I'm not a painter !" (Ne io pittore !) he roared to the
Terrible Pontiff, who fulminated and thundered in reply.
They both were terrible men ; and they unrestrainedly
spoke with perfect frankness as between man and man,
using no set form whatever.

The Terrible Pontiff, like all clerical patrons, was an
infernal nuisance to the Terrible Painter, who well-nigh
killed himself by years of ceaseless toil, lying on his back
upon a scaffold in the filthy air that hangs about a ceiling.
He would have no assistant save a boy or two. He lived,
and ate, and slept on the scene of his labour. Many times
the Terrible Pontiff came to see what was being done ; and
every time the Terrible Painter instructed Him in the art
and mystery of anathema, and drove Him away. At last
the Lord Julius P.P. II threatened to have Messer Michel-
ano-elo flung down, and the scaffold pulled about his ears:
but this was when the work was done. The Terrible
Painter had the scaffold removed, and invited his patron to
view the sumptuous ceiling. The Terrible Pontiff came ;
and saw ; and suggested that the scaffold should be re-
erected so that the work might be touched up with — ultra-
marine and gold-leaf !

# * #

In Ferrara, the year 1506 was marked by one of those
tragical expositions of naked human passion which afflict
humanity in every age. Madonna Angela de Borja y
Lan^ol, a cousin of theDuchess Lucrezia — being the daughter
of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI's sister, Dofia Juana, by
her marriage with Don Guillelmo de Langol, and sister to
Cardinal Juan de Borja y Lan9ol (detto Giovanni Seniore),
Archbishop of Monreale, and Cardinal Pedro Luis de
Borja y Lan^ol, — was a maid-of-honour attached to the
suite of the Duchess of Ferrara. She was very beautiful,
and is called in the chronicle " a most elegant damsel " —
damigella elegantissima. Two younger brothers of Duke

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Alfonso, the athletic Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, and Don
Giulio d'Este (bastard of the old Duke Ercole) fell in love
with her. Madonna Angela favoured the Bastard Giulio
whose lovely eyes she unreservedly admired — consequently,
as the manner was, his rival the Cardinal hired four pro-
fessionals to put out those eyes. Naif unpaltering straight-
forwardness of the Sixteenth Century ! The operation failed
of execution, for the Bastard Giulio, being forewarned,
escaped with his eyes unharmed. But such conduct does
not make for the peace of a state, brawling royalties afford-
ing disedification to the mob. The laws of Ferrara, paternal
in character, ordained a scale of penances graduated to
the rank of culprits : for example, a working man, who
obscenely swore, would pay a fine ; a swearing burgess paid
a double fine and a swearing noble was mulcted of a triple
fine. Therefore Duke Alfonso put the ban on his brother,
the Lord Cardinal Ippolito, who retired to Rome to nurse
his discontent and plan his next move against the Bastard
Giulio. Madonna Angela, who was no more to be blamed
than any other girl whose charms have inflamed a lusty pair of
rivals to desperation, married the third, Don Alessandro Pio
Estense di Savoja, Count of Sassuolo. The bandit^ Car-
dinal Ippolito had not long to wait in exile. If he had been
the Master of Fate, he could not have devised a neater or com-
pleter vengeance than that which came to him. It is one
thing to attempt to blind a bastard brother who is a royal
prince. It is another thing to compass the death of a brother
who is a reigning sovereign. The robust young Cardinal
was equal to the first : but above the second.

Duke Alfonso's brothers, Don Ferdinando d'Este and
the Bastard Giulio, engaged in a conspiracy to assassinate
him. News of the plot reached Cardinal Ippolito in Rome.
He promptly warned Duke Alfonso of his danger. Finding
themselves discovered, the conspirators fled. Don Ferdi-
nando was caught : but the Bastard Giulio, good at escapes,
took refuge in sanctuary with his brother-in-law the Marquess
of Mantua, who replied to Duke Alfonso's demand for
extradition that, if evidence of guilt were shewn, the criminal
should be delivered up to justice. Evidence was shewn, in

^ One bandito, under sentence, or ban, of exile.

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chronicles of the House of Borgia

the shape of the full confession of Don Ferdinando ; and the
Bastard Giulio passed into his sovereign brother's hands.
Brought to the common block in the square of Ferrara, the
two detected traitors were allowed to suffer all the pangs
of the approach of death : but, at the last moment, Duke
Alfonso in his mercy granted a reprieve, commuting their
penance to life-imprisonment.

* * *

Early in 1507, died Duke Cesare de Valentinois (detto
Borgia), by a mean inglorious death for one who had been
in life so mighty a man. While commanding a small
squadron on behalf of the King of Navarre, he was killed
in a petty skirmish by the castle of Viana. His corpse
was quietly interred in the cathedral of Pampeluna, which,
by a curious coincidence, had been the first piece of eccle-
siastical preferment conferred on him by the Lord Alex-
ander P.P. VI. So ended a phenomenal personality in
which superb and tawny beauty of physique, prodigious
force of character, fierce all-conquering energy, swift unerr-
ing almost-feline agility of action, and transcendent splen-
dour of achievement, were blasted and nullified and marred,
humanly speaking, by one single delicacy of respectful
conscientious self-sacrifice and supreme confidence in
clerical honour. His beautiful elegy by Ercole Strozzi,

" lUe diu, qui dum caelestibus auris
Visitur, implet onus laudis, caelumque meretur "

is too well-known to be quoted at length. He left three
children,

(a) Madame Eloise de Valentinois ; who married, first,
the Sieur Louis de la Tremouille, second, the Sieur
Philippe de Bourbon, Comte de Busset, whose direct
descendants flourish in France at the present day :

(/3) Don Girolamo de Valentinois ; who, by marriage
with Madonna Isabella Carpi patrician of Ferrara,
had issue Madonna Lucrezia de Valentinois married,
in 1562, to Don Bartolomeo Oroboni patrician of
Ferrara, who died in 1565.

(7) a bastard Madonna Camilla Lucrezia ; (evidently the
offspring of an intrigue carried on when Duke Cesare
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sparks that Die

was In Ferrara in 1 500-1 arranging the marriage
of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia to the heir of Duke
Ercole d'Este ;) born of Duke Cesare and a married
woman In Ferrara ; according to the deed of legi-
timation/ dated 1509, where Madonna Camilla
Lucrezia Is said to be "of the age of more than
seven years " : she became Abbess of San Bernar-
dino in Ferrara, In 1545 ; and died In 1573.

The Duchess Lucrezia Borgia d'Este w^as deeply grieved
by the death of Duke Cesare her half-brother. There is a
very touching letter written by her friend and sister-in-law,
the Marchioness Isabella Gonzaga of Mantua, to Duke
Alfonso who at that time was in Rome. It is dated the
eighteenth of April 1507 ; and describes how that the
Duchess of Ferrara, on receiving the sad news, immediately
went to the church of the monastery of Corpus Domini and
remained during two days and nights, praying for the
repose of the soul of Duke Cesare de Valentinols. A
simple act ; and precisely what any good Christian woman
would do In similar circumstances.

* # =;^

A year later, on the fourth of April 1 508, at the Castle
of Ferrara to the Immense joy of all, fonnosus puer est
for^noso natus Aprili, says Benedetto Lampridil in his
Carmina Inedlta, the Duchess Lucrezia bore to Duke
Alfonso a son and heir, who was baptized by the name
Ercole.

During this year, a league of the Powers was formed
under the Elect- Emperor Maximilian directed against
Venice ; and Duke Alfonso, whose dominions marched with
those of that Republic, threw in his lot with its foes. While
he was enofag-Inof the Venetians on the Romaona frontier,

' Observe the chivalrous gentleness of the Borgian Era in regard to
women, compared with the bald mercilessness of modern parochial and civil
Registers. In these deeds of legitimation, the woman is never named, and
not always the man. The weaker party is never punished by eternal gibbeting,
by eternal record of her shame by name. She is always permitted to hide
under the veil of coniugaia, or soltita, "a married woman" or "a spinster."
Still, the Twentieth Century is humane to the wolfs brother and the hysena's
cousin; and nourishes a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals:
and perhaps that balances the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries' humanity
and chivalry to sex.

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the Duchess Lucrezia ruled as Regent in Ferrara. She
administered government of the state with the same sweet
womanly thoroughness as she shewed in the administration
of the government of her domestic affairs. History is rich
in records relating to this lovely lady. She superintended
the household matters of her palaces with a minute attention
to detail which, to the modern middle-classes, would appear
amazino- in a Sovereion Duchess. To set a fashion of rare
liberal-mindedness she appointed the Jewess Mazzolino ta
the care of her extensive wardrobe, and Messer Ludovico
as her physician. Her regime was of the simple patriarchal
type of the old Duke Ercole, who, on the occasion of an
outbreak of plague in 1500, issued an Edict which said that
" Duke Ercole d'Este, for good reasons to him known, and
because it ahvays is well to be on good ter7ns with God,''
ordained religious processions every day throughout Ferrara.
A second quaint Edict of the same fatherly potentate, (which
incidentally speaks for the meticulously cleanly personal
habits of the Borgian Era, so strenuously maintained on a
previous page of this book,) proclaims that " inasmuch as
"bakers are known to knead their dough with feet that,
" frequently, are unclean, such practices must not continue
" except on penalty of fine or imprisonment : but the dough
"must be worked with clean hands and nails ^

Evildoers, all the same, had a shocking time. Mario
Equicola gives exact particulars of a certain Madonna
Laura (name suppressed) who, being caught in adultery,
was immured alive ; that is to say, she was publicly confined
in a cell a few feet square, with a little window, outside the
episcopal palace, near the entrance on the right of the high
altar of the cathedral of Ferrara. Perjurers went about
after their conviction with their tonoues securelv nailed ta
little logs of w^ood. The accounts for the nails and logs
exist. Duchess Lucrezia's sumptuary laws were unsuccess-
ful. The sex of the legislator prevented her from manu-
facturing laws to regulate fashion, which could be put into
practical effect. That was perfectly natural ; nor does the
failure in any way reflect upon the excellence of the inten-
tions of her ducal highness. She ordained that no woman
should wear a gown whose value was higher than the sum

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of fifteen ducats (say ^30), nor jewellery worth more than
fifty ducats (say ^100). She furnished a specification of the
i^ems which might be worn, and of the fabrics of which
<^owns might be made. Also, she precisely specified the
quantity of material that might be used, and the cut and
fashion that was to be adopted. Further, in order to secure
the observation of these laws, she ordained a box, having a
slit in its lid like a modern letter-box, to be placed in the
cathedral by the holy-water-stoup ; so that fathers, husbands,
•or lovers, who found themselves outraged by the length or
the rotundity of the skirts, or the bulk of the sleeves, or the
violence of the style of their women-folk, — and the cost ot
the same, — secretly might drop in denunciations while in
the act of taking holy water ; the said denunciations after-
wards to be attended-to in a legal manner by the justiciary.
Delightfully solemn and futile efifort of a charming woman.
Well, it failed ; not on account of the female peacocks of
Ferrara, but by reason of the very skewbald harlequins
whose propriety and purses it had aimed to benefit. How
many denunciations secretly were dropped into Duchess
Lucrezia's precious box, how many scandalized fathers,
husbands, and lovers, sneaked about their daughters, wives,
and lemans, is not known. Only one thing is known, —
there was not a justiciar in all the duchy of Ferrara,
married or unmarried, who dared even to allude to, much
less to act upon, the said denunciations, and enforce the
law.

On the twenty-fifth of August 1509, the Duchess
Lucrezia gave birth to a second son, Don Ippolito d'Este,
named after his uncle the heraklean Cardinal ; and who, in
after years, became Archbishop and Cardinal of Milan.

All through 1508 and 1509 the war went on. In
December of the latter year, a powerful Venetian fleet
advanced to the mouth of the Po, devastating the country
on both banks, and invading the duchy of Ferrara with
frightful atrocities. Duke Alfonso, hurrying to meet the
foe, won a glorious victory at Policella : but the war dragged
■on till 1512, keeping him in camp, away from his capital,
which almost exclusively was governed by the Duchess
Lucrezia (she bore Don Alessandro d'Este in 151 1),

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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

assisted by Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, now no longer a
bandit, but completely in the confidence and favour of his
sovereign brother.

^: * #

On the fifth of February 1510 died the noble and
strenuous knight Don Pietro Gregorio Borgia of the Junior
Branch. He had been high in honour with Duke Cesare
de Valentinois della Romagna since he saved him from the
clutches of the Christian King Charles VIII in 1495 ; and
had served him as mounted scale-armoured arbalister^
lieutenant, and standard-bearer. On the fall of the Duke,
he returned to his allegiance to the Regno now ruled by
the Catholic King Don Hernando. He was Viceroy of
the province of the Abruzzi when he died, and was buried
in the Church of San Clemente at Velletri, his native city.^
His fine epitaph- runs :

" Hic REQUiESCiT NoB. ET Strenuus Eques Dom. Petrus Borgia,
Cataphractor. Locum-tenens, AC SiGNiFER Cesaris Borgiae Ispani
Valentini Ducis, Qui objit An. Dni. MDX. D. qv. Men. Feb."

* * :^<

The year 1 5 1 1 is remarkable for a wildly frenetic
insurrection on the part of the gentle old Cardinal Francisco
de Borja, which cost that Most Worshipful Lord his rank
and his life. There is a limit to human endurance. In
some men it is wide ; in others narrow : but human nature
subjected to unnatural suppression and restraint, sooner or
later desperately will struggle to burst its bonds. This
principle has never been understood by the clergy. It
is one of the disabilities under which they labour in dealing
with men. History teems with examples of amiable, would-
be obedient, and respectable characters, tried beyond their
strength by inconsiderate ignorant oppressive injustice on
the part of churchmen, and transformed into savagely bitter
and appallingly destructive suicides. There is no better
example than Cardinal Francisco de Borja.

He was of the age of seventy years. Though his
illustrious House had been predominant in Christendom

1 TheuH. Bonaventura Abp. Teatro Istorico di Velletri, II. 5.
- Vit. Synop. Stef. Borgiae S.R.E. Card. Ampliss. (Peter Paul of St,
Bartholomew, discalced Carmelite. Rome, 1805, I. 2.)

278

sparks that Die

during more than fifty of those years, he had never sought
to benefit by the fact that his father was the Lord
Calixtus P.P. Ill, nor to intrude himself among the mighty
who were his blood-relations. Not till he was on the verge
of his sixtieth year did he become a personage ; and then
his august cousin, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, in admira-
tion of his enchanting disposition, dignified him with the
scarlet hat and the rank of Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title
of Santa Lucia in Silice, [Atfi ConsistojHali). Later, he
proceeded to the Title of Santa Cecilia, [Ciacconi and
Moroni); thence again to the Title of San Nereo e Sant'
Achilleo [Atti Co7isistoriali) ; and last to the Title of San
Clemente. He also was Treasurer of the Holy See,
Bishop of Teano, and Archbishop of Cosenza.

Seeing^ the exacerbatinof measures which the Terrible
Pontiff, the Lord Julius P.P. II was using against the
House of Borgia, and especially the spoliation of the two
little boys Duke Roderico and Duke Giovanni, this very
sympathetic old cardinal had the indiscretion to put his
frank opinion of the Pope's Holiness into certain letters
which he wrote to the Orator of Ferrara at the Court
of Rome. This opinion could not fail to be unfavourable
and the reverse of complimentary. No doubt the Orator
was in direct communication with his sovereign, Duke
Alfonso d'Este, whom he would keep advised of the
trend of sentiments and of events in Rome. These
letters came, by means which it would be improper to
describe, into the anointed hands of God's Vicegerent.
His Holiness read them ; and vehemently enraged himself
against the Duke Alfonso d'Este of Ferrara, and upon
Cardinal Francisco de Borja, whom he incontinently flung
into prison with every species of indignity. The Sacred
College, tremorous for its own security if such treatment
of a Purpled One should pass without remonstrance,
exerted its influence on the Holiness of the Pope, and
procured the ungracious liberation of Cardinal Francisco
de Borja.

But the ill was done. The milk of human kindness
effectually had been soured ; the placid amiable old gentle-
man had been changed into a violent malcontent breathing

279

chronicles of the House of Borgia

threatenings and slaughter, and whose fiery Spanish blood
at last was boiling over. Two other cardinals joined in
his savage revolt, the Lord Bernardino Lopez de Caravajal
Cardinal- Bishop of Sabina, and the Lord Guillaume de
Brigonnet Cardinal- Bishop of Praeneste (Palestrina).
These three decamped from Rome to Pisa, where, a
fourth, the Lord Rene de Prie Cardinal- Presbyter of the
Title of Santa Sabina, having joined them, they con-
stituted themselves as a General Council ; and dared to
cite the Lord Julius P.P. II to shew cause before them
why He should not be declared a Pseudopontiff, and
deposed from Peter's Throne, by reason of the irregularity
of His election due to Simony and other crimes : — an
excellent example of the sauce for the goose being served
to the gander.

Melpomene is own sister to Thalia ; and never has a
ghastlier tragedy been more comically played. This self-
styled Council of Pisa laboured under the disadvantage of
being radically schismatic. Only the Roman Pontiff can
summon, or confirm the decrees of, a General Council.
The acts of the Schismatic Council of Pisa, therefore,
were hopelessly and irretrievably invalid. The very impos-
sibility of the whole affair is proof conclusive that these four
well-intentioned, well-living pathetic old men had been tried
beyond their strength, beyond all patience, goaded by
insult and by gross injustice into frenzy. Their conduct
w^^s simply frenetic.

The Lord Julius P.P. II replied to Cardinal Francisco
de Borja with short incisive action. By His supreme
authority He issued a Bull of Deposition from the car-
dinalate ; and denounced him to all Christendom as an
heresiarch and schismatic with whom none mioht have to
do. A Bull (Bulla Monitorii Apostolici) was issued on the
twenty-eighth of July 151 1 '' cotra tres reverendissimos
cardinales . . . . ut redeCit ad obedietd S.d.n. ne Schisma in
eccl. ill sancta deioriet^ This was followed by a second
'''' BiLlla intimatiois Generalis Concitii apiid Lateraiiwn per
S.d.n. Juliii Papa II cdita^' directed, with the scrupulous
politeness of a cleric about to crush, against '' dilectu filiu
7iostru Franciscti Titiili Sancti Cleinentis pbytermn Car-

280

Sparks that Die

dinalem'' \ who ''in seipsis arinis assuviptis et pro
sacerdotalibtis vestis Tho7-ace^ indiUis et gladiis armati Papa
se cottderCity Printed contemporary copies of these two
Bulls are in the British Museum ; and, bound with them,
but, strange to say, uncatalogued (a.d. 1900) — (strange,
because of the unique perfection of every thing at the British
Museum) — is the momentous Brief announcing the issue of
the Bull of Deposition. Its title is ''Breve Julii Secudi Pont.
Max. ad reges, duces, et principes christianos, etc. "Julius
Papa II'' addresses Himself to

" Our well-beloved son in Christ Maximilian, Elect-Emperor, Always

August ;
„ „ ,, Louis (XII), of the French, the Most

Christian King ;
„ „ ,, Hernando, of Aragon and the Two

Sicilies, the Catholic King ;
„ „ „ Emanuele, of Portugal, the Illustrious

King ;
„ „ „ Henry (VII), of England, the Illus-

trious King ;^
„ „ „ James (V), of the Scots, the Illustrious

King ;
,, ,, „ Wladislaf, of Hungary and Bohemia,

the Illustrious King;
„ „ ,, Jean and Katharine, King and Queen

of Navarre ;
„ „ „ Sigismund, King of Poland ;

„ „ „ John, King of Denmark ;

„ „ „ Carlo, Duke of Savoja ;

„ „ ,, LionardoLauredano, DogeofVenice;"

and proclaims that "this day, in Public Consistory, We have
deprived " of all things ecclesiastical, and of the cardina-
litial hat, [s^alero cardinaiatzis), Bernardino Cardinal-Bishop
of Sabina, Guillaume Cardinal Bishop of Praeneste (Pales-
trina), Francisco Cardinal-Presbyter of the title of San

' It appears to be a little inconsistent of a Pope, Who wished Messer
Rafaele Sanzio to paint Him with a Sword and not a book in His hand, to
object to a Cardinal in a Breast-plate: for the sword is the weapon of offence ;
bui the Breast-plate, of defence merely. But many terms in this Bull are simply
*' corroborative detail calculated to lend an air of verisimilitude to an other-
wise bald and unconvincing narrative "—simply words, " full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing."

- The Twentieth Century may be shocked to notice that, in the Sixteenth,
England ranked as the fifth Power in Europe, after Portugal.

281

chronicles of the House of Borgia

Nereo e Sant' Achilleo (a clerical error for his Title, as
given above in the Bull, was San Clemente), and Rene de
Prie Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Sabina, that
they no longer may be considered Cardinals, nor called
Cardinals, by word or by writing. The Brief is Dated at
Rome at St. Peters, and given Under the Fishe^'maii s Ring,
the twenty foitrth of October 1 5 1 1 and the eighth year ofOzir
Pontificate. This summary is appended here as an example
of form.

Death had hurled his dart before the Terrible Pontiff.
Cardinal Francisco de Borja died of an apoplexy at Pisa,
before the sentence of his disgrace and deposition reached
him there.

The student of history, who seeks a field wherein few
yet have walked, will be well advised to investigate the life
of this gentle and quiet cardinal, who departed in the tragic
blaze of madness and revolt.

* *: *

In 15 12 death relieved the Lord Julius P.P. II of two
more of the Borgia whom He loathed : for there died in his
Neapolitan exile the Most Worshipful Lord Pedro Luis de
Lan^ol y Borja, Cardinal- Deacon of Santa Maria i7i Via
Lata, Arch-presbyter of the Liberian Basilica (Santa Maria
Maggiore), Abbot of San Simpliciano at Milan, and Arch-
bishop of Valencia in Spain. Having heard a rumour of
the death of the Supreme Pontiff, he was on the verge of
returning to Rome for the Conclave ; but he was killed by
falling from his mule at Naples, where he is buried in the
church of San Piercelestino without any memorial.

This year also died Don Roderico de Aragona e Borgia,
at the age of thirteen years, the son of Madonna Lucrezia
by her first legitimate marriage with Don Alonso de
Aragona Prince of Bisceglia. He had been despoiled of
his duchy of Sermoneta in favour of Caietani by the Lord
Julius P.P. II ; and his existence as a step-son was
embarrassing in Ferrara, except to his mother, who most
sincerely mourned him.

The Duchess Lucrezia was to suffer much this year.
The Lord Julius P.P. II put the ban of Greater Excom-
munication upon her beloved husband Duke Alfonso.

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sparks that Die

As the consort of a Borgia — a Borgia universally adored,
a sovereign Borgia, a Borgia of unblemished character, —
the Duke of Ferrara naturally was intensely antipathetic
to the Holiness of the Pope. If that were not enough, the
facts remained that Duke Alfonso was the friend of France,
(as the Supreme Pontiff's predecessor also had been); and, he
was coofnizant of Cardinal Francisco's disesteem for the
Lord Julius P.P. II. Naturally the Pope's Holiness found
the Duke's Excellency most annoying. The awful import
of Excommunication barely can be realized at the present
time. People idly wonder why the excommunicated take
their case so seriously — why they do not turn to find
amusement, or satisfaction, in another channel, — why they
persist in lying prone in the mire where the fulmination
struck them. And, indeed, in modern times the formal
sentence rarely is promulgated, and only against per-
sonages of distinction, like the German Dr. Dollinger or
the Sabaudo King Vittoremanuele II di Savoja, whose
very circumstances provided them with the means to allay
the temporal irritation of the blow. There are excom-
munications ''gerendae sententiae " and " /(3;/<2;^ sententiae."
In the former, excommunication is threatened for some act :
but the offender must have sentence passed upon him. In
the latter, the offender is excommunicate the moment he
performs the act forbidden, ("ipso facto"). This however
operates only " in foro interno,'' and in the Eyes of God.
To make it effectual " in foro externo'' it is necessary that
the guilt be proved and be declared to be so by some " com-
petent judge." Excommunication latae sententiae appears
not to have been uncommon in the Victorian Era. A
Leading Case occurred in December 1882, when it was
enforced against a Scots clergyman on the strength of the

following letter : —

" Rome, 6 Deceinbey 1882.

" My dear Lord Archbishop (of Saint Andrews and Edinl)urgh),
— I have just received a message from the Cardinal-Prefect (of Propaganda,
Cardal Simeoni,) to tell your Grace ' che il noto sacerdotc il quale voleva
citare i Vescovi incorrerebbe senza dubbio la censura al primo atto efficace
che ponesse, ossia all' atto della citazione, come cogens Ecclesiasticwn ad

283

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

tribunal laiciim. Se fosse ancora in tempo sarebbe bene che rArcivescovo
ne avvertisse il Sacerdote per distoglierlo da tale atto.'
" Yours very respectfully,

" F. A. Campbell,
" (then Rector of the Scots College of Rome.)"

The censure was Excommunicatio latae sententiae special!
modo reservatae Romano Pontifici. Bulla Apostolicae
Sedis. VII} Seldom does a case of Excommunication
terminate in a perridiculous collapse, as this one did,
when the Cardinal- Prefect denied having sent the quoted
message. Seldom, on the whole, is Excommunication
latae sententiae made effectual by proof of guilt and
■declaration of proof of guilt by a competent judge. The
effect can be produced in another and far more exitial
way. Simple secret instructions, or even hints, can be
^iven by bishops to clergy, or adverse opinions can be
expressed by one clerk to another, suggesting that it
would be well (that it would tend ad majorem Dei
o^loriam, some say,) to obstruct the worldly welfare of
such and such an one, to refuse him his rites and
sacraments, or at least to offer the last upon such conditions
as the "proper pride" in human nature will disdain to
accept. This mode is purely devilish. It is capable of
abuse by unworthy clerks for personal ends. It admits
of no defence, of no appeal, of no redress, by the very
reason of its intangibility. It constricts a man in phantom
folds. It blanches him with venomous breath. The world,
ever ready to pity some obscene dog who manifests his
pain, here sees nothing save one bruised and broken ;
desperately digladiant, struggling with some invisible (and
therefore incredible) foe. The civilized world goes in
terror of the invisible ; goes by "on the other side."
Excommunication of any kind is a fearsome thing for
him to whom the Faith once delivered to the saints is
the only prize worth having. To the man who, in defect
of spiritual advice, is convinced of his own integrity, to

' See McngJtini. (C. Canon) Opinion . . . upon the Question whether . . .
John Carmont D.D. incurred the Major Excommunication, etc. /. Anderson
and Son. Courier and Herald Offices, Dumfries. J8S6: and leading article in
Scotsman, May nth, i8S6.

2S4

Sparks that Die

whom the sacraments are as " odorifera panacea, "^ to whom
the sacraments are the only means which keep him from
Despair, their deprivation, by the revenge of a personal
enemy, of an offended vanity abasing spiritual powers to-
satiate secular ambition, signifies that, for the excom-
municate, the light goes out of life, love is eradicated
from the heart, confidence in man is killed, hope is banished
from death. Sympathy he may have from aliens, if he
can humiliate himself to expose his grievous wounds : but
he may have it only at a price which in honour he cannot
pay — the price of insincerity to his convictions — the price of
apostasy. The dire Ban of excommunication, formal or
informal, drives a man wild ; turns his hand against every
man, and every man's hand against him ; he is savage ; he
is a Bandit, actually and literally. Sometimes he becomes
criminal. Ostracism practised is a school for scoundrels.
Far more merciful — divinely merciful, not humanly — it
would be to slay outright the body ; than to doom a soul to
live a solivagous life of torture — the torture of Hopelessness.
That is why Excommunication is so horrible in this present
age of works. That is why it was so trenchant a weapon in
the ages of faith. It was, and is, perfectly impossible to be
resisted by one who is, and was, sincerely faithful. Often
enough, an excommunicate sovereign would try resistance ;
for sovereigns are stronger than ordinary plebeians in the
matter of resources. Then, when an interval for considera-
tion had elapsed, the second blow of the Flail would fall —
Interdict : his demesne would be made to suffer loss of the
means of grace, the sacraments, which were denied to him.
His subjects generally rose, resentful and revolting. There
was no reason why they should be afflicted, when sub-
mission of their sovereign to God's Viceo^erent would suffice
for their enfranchisement. But sometimes Interdict also
failed. The third blow came. Subjects were absolved
from their oath of allegiance to the excommunicate ; his
throne was declared vacant ; kings and princes of Christen-
dom were invited to invade his realm, to take his crown and
sceptre, to expel him a homeless friendless connudate out-
cast in a world that shunned him like a pestilence, like the

^ (Verg. Aen. XII. 419.)
285

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

horrid leprous scab of creeping things which his blasted
human body inevitably would become. Then, suppliant,
submissive, he crawled to his Canossa ; as the late Duke of
Lauenberg crawled to the Lord Leo P.P. XIII the other
day ; as Caesar Fridericus Ahenobarbus Semper Augustus
abjectly crawled to, and waited at, the gates of the huge
Englishman, Nicholas Breakespeare, the Lord Hadrian
P.P. IV, who ruled the world eight hundred years ago,
" Not for thee, but for Peter," that indignant Emperor
muttered, perforce doing groom's service for Peter's Suc-
cessor, holding the stirrup of the pontifical palfrey. " For
Us, and for Peter," the superb English Pope retorted, as
He bent Caesar to His unconquerable will. Arrogant ?

Arrogant of any miserable mortal man who did not

believe himself to be, who had not been officially crowned
and saluted, and to whom every emperor and king and
prince of Christendom, every Christian sovereign and subject
of Europe, had not sworn allegiance as, " Ruler of the
World, Father of Princes and of Kings, Earthly Vicar of
Jesus Christ our Saviour."

When the action of the human mind is inspired by the
principle endeavoured here to be set down, the inexpugnable
face of Excommunication, (magnified by the assent to its
validity of the excommunicated one,) perhaps, may be
realized. Duke Alfonso d'Este could not hope to stand
where Caesar Semper Augustus fell. Naturally, he went
in desperate and horrid fear. He knew that he had not
deserved to be gibbeted as a Bandit before the world : but
he knew also that, before the Holiness of the Pope, he, a
sovereiofn-re^nant, was crushable as a worm. He lost no
time in omittino- to seek release from the hideous ban.

Early in 15 13, he chose the poet Messer Ludovico
Ariosto, with his beautiful Greek profile and noble intellect,
secretary and laureate of Cardinal Ippolito ; and named him
as his Orator to open negotiations with the Pope.

The Lord Julius P.P. II was perfectly implacable. He
had not pardoned the indiscreet criticisms of Cardinal
Francisco de Borja, who had passed beyond His power.
It was the complete ruin of Borgia that alone would slake
His passionate thirst for vengeance ; — and a Borgia was

286

sparks that Die

Duchess of Ferrara. He did not intend kindness to the
consort of that Duchess : and He resolved to begin, in a
clerical manner, with intimidation. Accordingly, He
admitted Messer Ludovico Ariosto to an audience ; and
immediately ordered him to quit the Vatican by the door
before he should be thrown from the window. After this
reception of a proffered olive-branch, the Pope's Holiness
coolly awaited Duke Alfonso's next move,

Don Fabrizio Colonna flourished in the favour of the
Lord Julius P,P, H ; and he, also, was under many vital
obligations to the Duke of Ferrara. He, in his turn, tried
the role of peacemaker between pontiff and sovereign ; and
so far succeeded, that the Holy Father farcically permitted
the Duke to come to Rome, assured of a favourable recep-
tion, to plead his cause and to arrange the terms of his
submission.

He came. He saw the Ruler of the World. He was
conquered. The Terrible Pontiff named the sole conditions
on which He would consent to remit the ban of excom-
munication. Nothing could be more enormously radical
and sweeping. They were, abdication of his sovereignty
over the city and whole duchy of Ferrara, with absolute
renunciation for himself and his heirs for ever of all rights
therein, in favour of the Holy See ; also, his retirement to
voluntary life-long exile at the little city of Asti in the
province of Lombardy. Death and obliteration of the
Borgia, not by vulgar assassination but by constitutional
withdrawal of the means to live, was the aim of the Terrible
Pontiff; wherefore He would strip naked Duke Alfonso, as
aforetime He had stripped naked Duke Cesare.

Duke Alfonso d'Este refused to purchase release from
excommunication on these disgraceful terms. The Lord
Julius P.P. n let him have hints which gave to understand
that the said terms might be mitigated. By various sub-
terfuges he was detained in Rome.

The army of the Terrible Pontiff stealthily was advancing
on Ferrara.

There was only a woman there.

Duke Alfonso chanced to hear of the pontifical stratagem.
On the instant, he made his plans for quitting Rome. But

287

chronicles of the House of Borgia

he found that he was in a prison. The Terrible Pontiff
held him ; and would not let him go. The Lord Alexander
P.P. VI may not have been a Saint : but He never dirtied
His honour like this.

This treachery of the Holiness of the Pope disgusted
the Ghibellinism of Don Fabrizio Colonna. This was not
w^hat he had contemplated, when he persuaded Duke
Alfonso to adventure his right hand in the jaws of the
Wolf of Rome. Considering himself to be responsible, his
own honour at stake, he played a counter-stratagem upon
the Lord Julius P.P. H. By his aid, the Duke broke
prison ; and, under his protection, in his fortress of Marino
fifteen miles from Rome, a safe asylum was provided.
Duke Alfonso desired to hasten to defend his duchy now
menaced by the Pope : and all Colonna acclaimed his
resolution. Don Prospero Colonna undertook to bring him
there where he would be. Travelling by night through
hostile territory, environed by ever-present dangers, at
length, disguised as Don Prospero's cook, the royal and
ducal Bandit reached Ferrara.

In the city there was joy. In the duchy there was
confidence restored. In the heart of the Duchess Lucrezia
there was gratitude for the safety of her much-loved lord.
Ferrara was fresh from four years successful war : an
excessively dangerous enemy to assault, now that her leader
led her. The pontifical army executed a second strategic
movement at the double — to the rear.

And, before the year 15 13 was three months old, the
Terrible Pontiff, the Lord Julius P.P. II, (Who, according
to Monsignor Paris de Grassis, successor to Burchard as
Papal Caerimonarius, suffered from the French Disease,)
died at Rome, raving in His last delirium " Frenchmen,
begone from Italy! Begone from Italy, Alfonso d'Este!"

Dreadful end of a furious revengeful disappointed
plebeian who was Ruler of the World! The monstrous
Moses of Michelangelo, in San Pietro ad Vincula, marks
His ambitious unfinished tomb.

The Most Illustrious Lord Giovanni de' Medici, Car-
dinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Domnica, was the son of

288

Sparks that Die

Lorenzo de' Medici of Florence, born the eleventh of
December 1475. His mother was Madonna Clarice
Orsini, one of the sweetest and best of good mothers. Her
husband said that his own mother chose her for him,

" Tolsi donna . . . ovvero mi fu data.

When Don Giovanni was of the age of seven years (the
age of reason, technically,) the Christian King named him
Abbot of Fonte Dolce, on the nineteenth of May 1483, in
which preferment the Lord Sixtus P.P IV. confirmed him
twelve days later by Brief dated the thirty-first of May
1843. On the first of June he received the ecclesiastical
tonsure, when episcopal hands wielded scissors to cut the
child-clerk's hair in five places — on the front, the back, the
right, the left, and the crown, of the head — while bishop
and boy recited the psalm verse :

" The Lord is the portion — " Dominus pars —

" Of mine inheritance — " Haereditatis nieae —

" And of my cup — " Et calicis mei —

" Thou art He Who shall restore — " Tu es Qui restitues —

" Mine inheritance to me — " Haereditatem meatn mihi —

and finally the bishop endued him with the fair white
linen surplice, (super pellicem) the official vesture of his
clerical estate. The symbolism of this mystery seems to be
that the clerk enlists himself in the regular army of the
Church Militant, sacrificing an actual piece of his person as
a pledge of his fidelity, and receiving as handsel, so to
speak, his uniform. From this date the child was called in
his family Messer Giovanni, (Mr. John). On the first of
March 1484, he was named Abbot of Passignano. He
grew up a good and manly boy, fond of nice things, grave,
quietly merry, and a perfect gentleman. On the third of
March 1489, his father's friend the Lord Innocent
P.P. VIII created him Cardinal- Deacon of Santa Maria
in Domnica ; but, as he was only of the age of thirteen
years, the creation was reserved in petto, while he continued
his studies under Canon Angelo Ambrogini (detto
Poliziano) ; who, in 1492 wrote to the Pope about his
pupil,

289 T

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

" This youth is so formed by nature and education that, being inferior
" to none in genius, he yields not to his equals in industry, nor to his
" teachers in learning, nor to old men in gravity of demeanour. He natur-
" ally is honest and ingenuous, and he has been so strictly bred that never
" from his mouth there comes a lewd, or even a light, expression. Though
"he be so young, his judgement is so secure that even the old respect him
" as a father. He sucked piety and religion with his mother's milk, pre-
" paring himself for his sacred office even from his cradle. (Ep. v. Lib.

" vni)

In the Publick Consistory of the twenty-second of
March 1492, he was admitted to the Sacred College, re-
ceiving the scarlet hat and the cardinalitial sapphire-ring,
(whose value was six hundred zecchini d'oro — say, ^1200) ;
and he was of the age of sixteen years, three months, eleven
days.

During his cardinalate his most delightful trait was the
loving kindness which he shewed to his young cousin
Giulio, (Botticelli's most precious model), the bastard of
Don Giuliano de' Medici, by Madonna Antonia Gorini of
Florence, and who ended his life as the Lord Clement
P.P. VII. Cardinal Giovanni got him ennobled as a
Knight of St. John of Jerusalem of Malta, and Prior of
Capua ; and gave him an honourable position in his house-
hold as confidential counsellor : and, indeed, it was to Don
Giulio, attending him as esquire in the Conclave of March
1 5 13, that Cardinal Giovanni generously said, when the
result of the squittino (scrutiny) was made known, " Come
Giulio, let us enjoy the Papacy, since God hath given it to
Us :" and he immediately raised His cousin to the purple,
orivino- him His Own vacated rank of Cardinal- Deacon of
Santa Maria m Doinnica}

Cardinal Giovanni, like all the Medici, was congenitally
myopic. In all presentments of him, there is the slight
forward bend or set of the neck which marks the short-
sighted man. Messer Paolo Giovio says that he surveyed
the world through a concave crystal, and that this affected
his skill as a sportsman. Messer Rafaele Sanzio's portrait

1 These two charming personages used a most beautiful handwriting,
neat, clear, well-mannered, decisive ; as may be seen in the private Brief of
the Lord Leo V.V.y^, placet et ita moin proprio mandamus ; and in the letter of
Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, dated April 1516; which are preserved in the
British Museum 23.721.

290

Sparks that Die

of him and his cousin shows him with this concave crystal
spy-glass in his hand. No doubt his physical incomplete-
ness wonderfully aided in developing his enchanting taste
and temperament ; for it is well known that the best artist
is the man who does not see all,^

The crowd, waiting outside the Conclave of 1 5 1 3 for the
annunciation of the new Pope, were confronted by a door-
way builded of the fragments of other buildings. Some of
the stones bore portions of mutilated inscriptions ; and the
crowd amused itself by piecing these together. But there
was one large stone above the lintel, whose inscription
baffled explanation. It bore the letters

M. C. C. C. C. X. L.

and presumably had come from some edifice dated 1440.
Presently, the door was flung open ; and the scarlet
Cardinal- Archdeacon proclaimed, " I announce to you
great joy. We have for a Pope the Lord Giovanni de'
Medici, Cardinal- Deacon of Santa Maria in Domnica, who
wills to be called Leo the Tenth." And in the dooway
stood the white figure of the new Successor of St. Peter, of
the age of thirty-eight years. His head straining a little
forward, peering through His half-closed bright eyes,
lifting His hand in Apostolic Benediction. Instantly a wag
in the kneeling crowd explained the cryptic inscription
Miilti Caeci Cardinales Ci'eavertmt Caecttin X {decinuuii)
Leonem ; "Many short-sighted cardinals created a short-
sighted one Leo the Tenth." That is a specimen of wit in
the year 15 13, bright, quick, direct, pungent, and finished.
* # #

The election of the Lord Leo P.P. X was an immense
relief to the Duke and Duchess of Ferrara. It meant de-
liverance from unscrupulous persecution ; for the Pope's
Holiness now was patrician, and at least a gentleman,
though no enemy to the House of Borgia. So Ferrara and
Borgia went in peace. The duchy had been at war for
nearly six years, almost without cessation ; her resources
were quite exhausted ; her exchequer was empty. So
keen was the distress, that, in order not to add to his people's

^ Whistler counts his myopia as his chief talent.
291

chronicles of the House of Borgia

burden by pressing- for his revenues, Duke Alfonso pawned
his plate, and Duchess Lucrezia her jewels which were of
enormous value. These were redeemed three years later :
and it is to the inventory, made when they were pawned,
that modern knowledge of their extraordinary rarity and
worth is due.

^^ ^f *

On the thirteenth of September 15 13 was born in Rome,
of Don Tarquinio Poplicola di Santacroce and Madonna
Ersilia his wife, the Noble Don Prospero Poplicola di
Santacroce, afterwards Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of
San Girolamo de^/z Schiavoni and Nuncio, who introduced
Tobacco into Italy and gave it the name Ei'ba Santacroce,
Holy cross Herb.

-JV" W w

The life of the Duchess Lucrezia, durino- the next few
years, was a life of calm after storm, post tot natifragias titta.
She won fresh fame by her goodness to young girls, whom
she provided with dowries, to tempt them to keep continency
by marrying well. Delightfully practical age, which went
directly to the point attempting no maudlin half-measures,
" so sweetly mawkish and so smoothly dull " ! The ideal of
the professional philanthropist, then, was to make virtue
easy, and vice difficult. The ideal of the professional
philanthropist, now, is to make virtue horribly vulgar and
vice an imperious necessity. The Duchess Lucrezia had
observed that the lack of money is the root of all evil ; and,
at that root she struck.

Charming descriptions are extant of the evenings which
this egregious lady spent in conversation with poets and
scholars, listening to music, and working on the lovely
embroidery for which she was so celebrated. On the third
of July 1 5 15, she presented her lord with a daughter. The
same year she was grieved by the death of her friend,
the great printer, Messer Aldo Manuzio. That cool-headed,
shrewd, and very learned Venetian, the hereditary enemy of
Ferrara, has left laudations of the Duchess Lucrezia which
are sincere and unsurpassable. It is not singular that the
great and good among her intimate contemporaries should
be those who praise her ; and that her defamers should be

292

Sparks that Die

professional squibbers, notoriously base and venal. The
following year, the eleventh of July, 1516, she suffered the
loss of her little son who was of the age of five years. Is
the touching letter, by which she conveyed the news to her
confidante and sister-in-law, the Marchioness Isabella
Gonzaga of Mantua, the letter of a wicked woman or of a
good ? She says,

" the Most Illustrious Don Alessandro, my youngest son, after a

-" long and painful illness, in which remedies were of no avail, was seized by
^' a cruel dysentery. Yesterday, at the fourth hour of the night, (say, mid-
^' night,) the poor little man (poven'no) yielded his blessed soul into the
'' hands of our Lord God, leaving me much afflicted and full of sorrow; as
*' Your Excellency, being a woman and a tender mother yourself, may easily
■*' believe.^

On the Festival of All Saints, she bore another son to
Duke Alfonso, who was baptized by the name Francesco.

# # #

On the twenty-sixth of November 15 17, there died
in Rome Madonna Giovanna de' Catanei, the mother
of the Duchess Lucrezia ; and w^as buried in Santa Maria
de/ Popolo by the Flaminian Gate. Nine of her letters to
her daughter, and rather crabbed letters too, are preserved
in the Archives of Modena. They are subscribed, ''La
felice ed infelice madre ; which seems precisely to describe
her condition. She was a happy mother ; happy in the
gorgeous loveliness of her children, happy in their good
fortune, happy in being the mother of two dukes, a prince-
duke, and a sovereign duchess : but unhappy, in that human
law made their father not her husband. Another letter of
hers, dated from Rome the fifteenth of December 15 15, and
signed " Perpetua Oratrice Vanozza," has been the means
of causing some uncertainty as to her real name. The
following is suggested at an explanation.

"Vanozza", of course, is a familiar abbreviation of
■" Giovanozza ", which is equivalent to " Big Jenny ".
Italians are deliciously disrespectfully inoffensive in their
use of universal and personal nicknames ; which are taken
conferred without the least aggrievance. " Perpetua

' Belriguardo. xi Jul. 1516.
«93

chronicles of the House of Borgia

Oratrice ^ " is not a name at all : but a quasi-officiai
style.

In Enoiand at the present day, one frequently is startled
by the receipt of a letter, from some fervent member of
that devout female sex (for which Holy Church, knowing-
needs, diurnally prays), bearing as signature the names
of the writer, with the addition " E de M ". If one has
not yet seen the lions, (as the Fifteenth Century said of a
novice,) one looks for the university degree, knightly order
municipal or parochial rank, of which those letters are the
sign. But, when one knows them to stand for " Enfant de
Marie," one remembers that a pious sodality, of French
origin and called " The Children of Mary," is an excessively
and universally fashionable one among females ; and doubts
are at an end.

It is probable that there was some such pious associa-
tion for females of the Borgian Era. Madonna Giovanna
always was a respectable well-living character : but we know-
that she found salvation, was converted, became divote, in
1508, when she sat under Frat' Egidio da Viterbo preaching
a course of Lent sermons in Rome.

It is suofsested, then, that at once she beo-an " to make
her soul," to prepare to meet her God, for she was well on
in years ; and that she became a member of some Confra-
ternity of Perpetual Prayer, resembling those of the present
day whose members divide among themselves the duty of
praying the clock round, so that an unending stream of
supplication shall flow toward the Throne of Grace. It is
suggested, that, being a human woman, cherishing no
objection to a little perfectly legitimate advertisement of
virtue (like the ladies of the " E de M " description).
Madonna Giovanna de' Catanei formed the habit of signing
her private letters "The Perpetual Suppliant, Big Jenny."

Her epitaph has been given on p. 261.

* * *

There are two documents of this year 15 17, which
go to prove that, at this time, there existed no idea of

1 Oratrice (oratrix) is a rare word = but perfectly classical; and its use
shews that the Renascence of Learning had done something to improve eccle-
siastical Latin, and, by consequence, Italian also.

294

sparks that Die

concealing the parentage of Don Giovanni Borgia the some-
time Duke of Nepi and Camerino. The boy appears to
have made his home with his sister, the Duchess Lucrezia ;
for both documents are issued under her protection and
authority. She was nineteen years older than her brother,
who now was of the age of twenty-one years ; and her
notable good-nature, as well as her royal estate, make it
natural enouoh that she should be more mother than sister
to her august Father's youngest son.

The first brief (they both are quoted in Cittadella,) is
dated "sub die 1° Nov. 1517"; and names the Bishop of
Adria as Don Giovanni's agent in some pecuniary trans-
action, he being less than twenty-five, and more than
eighteen, years old. It begins, " Ferrariae in palatio
"habitationis 111™ . . . Ill""' Dominus Joannes Borgia,
^^ f rater 111'"^'' Dominae Lucretiae Borgiae Ducissae Fer-
" rariae, minor annis vigintiquinque, maior tamen decem
" octo, ."

The second brief is addressed to Messer Filippo
Strozzi ; and claims, from the consuls of Pesaro, the baggage
which the young noble had lost after his shipwreck in sight
of that city ! It is dated the second of December 1517;
and begins, " Mandatum IH""^^ Dominae Ducissae Ferrariae
" in palatio Ducali . . . Ill"'* Domina Lucretia Borgia
" Estensis . . . suo nomine, et nomine ac Tanquam
" coniuncta persona 111™ Domini Joannis Borgiae eius
^' J7'ater .

Little or nothing further has been discovered regarding
the life of this youth. His history, with that of his brother
Prince Gioffredo Borgia of Squillace, waits to reward
research in the archives of Naples, Nepi, Camerino and
Ferrara. Reluctantly, they must be left here among the
Sparks That Die.

The following announcement closes the second epoch of
the House of Borgia. It is dated the twenty-first day of
June 1519 ; and was sent by flying posts to his nephew, the
Marquess Federigo Gonzaga of Mantua : "It hath pleased
"the Lord God to take unto Himself the soul of the

295

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

" Illustrious Duchess, my much-beloved Consort. (Signed)
" Alfonsus Dux Feraria.

The " Illustrious Duchess" Lucrezia Borgia was buried
in her favourite church at the monastery of Corpus Domini,
by side of her husband's mother the Duchess Leonor de
Aragona, deeply and sincerely mourned by her children,
and her husband Duke Alfonso d'Este, and, indeed, by all
Ferrara duchy crowding round her bier. She was only in
the forty-second year of her age.

May she rest in the fragrant peace of her good deeds.

# # #

JcjG

The Brilliant Light'

" A fire that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays
" hold on the faggots ; bursts into a roaring blaze, ivith raging
" tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks
" that die ; settles into the steady genial glare, the brilliant light,
" that men call fire ;

The Borgia, who have gone before, present no difficulty to
the Twentieth Century. When once their formula has
been learned, they are found to be men of like passions
with ourselves. They were born — they struggled through
life with an amazing amount of dignity and success— they
died. For a reason which has yet to be explained, the
human race has made them serve for hell-myths, for
prodigies of turpitude, for symbols wherewith to express
ultimate and abysmal crime.

" The slave of his own appetites, in bondage to conventional laws, his
" spirit emasculated by the indulgences, or corroded by the cares of life,
"hardly daring to act, to think, or to speak, for himself; man, — gre-
" garious man, — worships the world in which he lives, adopts its maxims,
" and treads its beaten paths. To rouse him from his lethargy, and to
" give a new current to his thoughts, heroes appear from time to time on
" the verge of his horizon ; and hero-worship, Pagan or Christian, withdraws

' Authorities for this sketch of Saint Francisco de Borja, General of
Jesuits, and sometime Duke of Gandia, etc.

1. Ribadaneira. Life.

2. Cardinal Alvaro Cienfuegos. La heroica vida, etc. del grande San
Francisco de Borja. Madrid 1717.

3. Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu. Madrid 1894-5.

4. Sir James Stephen. Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography.

5. A. M. Clarke. St. Francis Borgia. Lond. 1872 etc.

The last was prepared under the auspices of the late Fr. John Morris, S.J. ;
and is useful in giving the modern English Jesuit point of view.

297

chronicles of the House of Borgia

" him for a while from still baser idolatry. To contemplate the motives
" and the career of such men may teach much that well deserves the know-
" ing : but nothing more clearly than this — that no one can have shrines
" erected to his memory in the hearts of men of different generations, unless
" his own heart was an altar, on -which the daily sacrifices, of fervent devo-
" tion and magnanimous self denial, were offered to the only true Object of
" human worship. i

The wheel of time makes one unerrino" revolution ; and
lo, a saint, — a Borma Saint.

To write of Saint Francisco de Borja, so that he may
be known of men, is more than difficult. Each man knows
another, not by his strength but by his weaknesses, not as
surpassing but as lacking such and such of the Ideal ; for
weakness makes men kin. And Saint Francisco de Borja
gave no sign of human weakness, little or no sign of human
nature, after he had reached his manhood. He has been
called "a magnified non-natural man" ; and that is the only
point of view from which he can be observed. He lived
entirely on the supernatural plane : the world, to him, was
nothing but an enemy with whom he would have neither
art nor part : he was in it, but not of it : his ways were not
men's ways, nor his thoughts men's thoughts : he rightly
cannot be liked, or disliked, hated, or loved, admired, or
even judged. He must be taken as he was, comparable to
none, the exact antipodes of his strenuous august invincible
magnificent ancestors for there are " diversities of gifts," in
opposition to all human ideals, a "magnified non-natural
man." His note is brilliantly personal. He was utterly
and absolutely selfishly solicitous about his own salvation.
He made that the unique object of his life ; and, to that
end, he deliberately chose renunciation, hardship, ignominy,
utter and extreme. His singular devotion, to the task of
living according to his light, is a phenomenon of an intensity
beyond the natural, environing him with an aura as of one
aloof, as of one alien among men, and, therefore, altogether
antipathetic to men.

He was the orreat-orandson of the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI, Whose bastard Don Juan Francisco de Borja,
Duke of Gandia in Spain, Prince of Teano and Tricarico,

* Sir James Stephen. Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, i. 29.

298

The Brilliant Light

Count of Chiaramonte, Lauria. and Cerignola, Constable of
Naples, and General of the Pontifical Army, had married
Doiia Maria de Aragona, a princess of the royal House of
Arag-on. After the mysterious murder of her husband at
Rome in 1497, the Duchess Doiia Maria married Don
Enriquez de Luna, uncle and Master of the Household to
the Viceroy Don Hernando of Castile, and Grand Com-
mander of Leon, who soon left her widowed the second
time. She lived at Baeza in Granada, and devoted herself
to her two children, Doiia Isabella, and Don Juan H de
Borja, who succeeded his murdered father as Duke of
Gandia and the rest. When her son married, she retired to
the monastery of Poor Clares (the Second Order of the
Religion of San Francesco d'Assisi) at Gandia, where she
took the vows of a nun, and became Suor Maria Gabriella
till her death in 1537. Her daughter, Dona Isabella, who
was betrothed to the Duke of Segorbe, obtained the
necessary dispensations, broke before marriage from her
affianced husband ; and followed the Duchess of Gandia
her beloved mother to the Poor Clares, where she also took
the vows as Suor Francisca de Jesus.

Don Juan II married, first. Dona Francisca de Castro y
Pinos ; secondly, Doiia Juana de Aragona, bastard of
Archbishop Don Alonso de Aragona of Saragossa nephew
of the Catholic King Don Hernando of Spain. ^ Fourteen
children were the offspring of these marriages ;

Don Francisco, the Saint :

Don Alonso, Abbot of Valdigna :

Don Enrico, Cardinal-Deacon of San Nereo e Sant' Achilleo :

Dona Luisa, married Don Martino de Aragona y Gurrea, Duke of Villa-

hermosa :
Don Rodrigo, Cardinal- Deacon of San Niccolo in Carcere TuUiaiio : " while

still a youth " (Ciacconi)
Don Pedro Luis, Viceroy of Cataluna :
Don Tommaso, Archbishop of Saragossa, (in succession to Archbishop

Don Juan de Aragona bastard of Archbishop Don Alonso,) and

Viceroy of Aragon :
Don Felipe, Knight of Montesa and Governor of Oran :
Don Diego, died young :

^ A second bastard of Archbishop Don Alonso de Aragona, also called
Doiia Juana, married Don Felipe of Austria, and became the mother of the
Emperor Carlos.

299

chronicles of the House of Borgia

Dofla Jiia)ia, First Abbess of the Royal Monastery of Discalced Carmelites

at Madrid. She died in the Odour of Sanctity :
Doiia Leonor, married Don Juan de Gurrea :

Dona Magdalena, married Don Hernando de Proxita, Count of Almenara :
Dona Margarita, married Don Fadrique de Portugal y Cordo :

Dona Isabella, followed her grandmother Dona Maria (Suor Maria Gabri-

c»eru ella), and her aunt Dona Isabella (Suor Francisca de Jesus) to the

Poor Clares of Gandia, of which monastery she became Abbess.

That is a very characteristic family of a Grandee and
Hijo de algo (son of something) of Spain. Leaving- the
heir out of the question, the eight sons divide between
them two cardinalates, an archbishopric, an abbacy, two
viceroyalties, and a governorship: while, of the six daughters,
two enter religion and become abbesses, and four marry
g-randees and semi-royalty of Spain. It is worth noting
too, that shame on account of their origin, or their
ancestors' supposed misbehaviour, has not yet made its
appearance. Alonso was the name of many royal bastards
of the House of Aragon, as well as of the Lord Calixtus
P.P. III. Rodrigo was the name of the Lord Alexander
P.P. VI, who also began his public career in the Cardinal-
Diaconate of San Niccolo in Carcere Tulliano, and Whose
eldest bastard (ob. 1481) was called Pedro Luis. All these
names were repeated here in the third and fourth genera-
tion ; and the eldest son of Don Juan II, bore the second
name of his murdered grandfather, Francisco.

The Terrible Pontiff, the Lord Julius P.P. II was
reigning in Rome, when Don Francisco de Borja was born
in 1 5 10 at the ducal palace of Gandia in Spain.

The Terrible Pontiff was only a terrible memory ten
years later, and the Lord Leo P.P. X. was trying hard to
"enjoy the Papacy," in Rome when riots arose in Gandia,
the ducal palace was sacked, and Don Juan II, with his
family, was forced to flee for life. Don Francisco, then a
gracious boy of ten, was sent to his uncle Archbishop Don
Juan de Aragona at Saragossa,^ who supplied him with a
house and retinue suited to his condition, and masters who

1 Anciently Salduba, colonized by Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus
Augustus B.C. 27, who called it Caesaraugasta ; afterwards corrupted into
Saragossa.

The Brilliant Light

taught him music, fencing, and Latin grammar ; for he was-
to be bred as became the heir to the duchy of Gandia, and
the future head of the Spanish Branch of the House of
Borja.

In January 1522 died the Lord Leo P.P. X ; and the
Lord Hadrian P.P. VI, a ship-carpenter's son out of
Utrecht in Flanders, was elected Pope, called the Laocoon
a pagan idol, walled-up the Belvedere statue -gallery of the
Vatican ; and died. To Him, in 1523, succeeded Cardinal
Giulio de' Medici, cousin and life-friend of the Lord Leo
P.P. X, who ascended Peter's Throne under the title of
the Lord Clement P.P. VII. Great changes were taking-
place in Europe. By marriage, conquest, inheritance, or
lapse, the Holy Roman Empire had passed into the hands
of Spain. The Elect-Emperor Carlos V, though he
ceremonially had not been crowned with the Iron Crown or
the Double Golden Diadem, ruled in Spain, Naples and
Southern Italy, Germany, Austria, and part of France.
King Henry VIII Tudor, the Defender of the Faith, was
becoming a power in England. The Christian King of
France was his rival : but the Continent of Europe mainly
was the Elect-Emperor's, and wholly, perhaps, the Roman
Pontiff's.

At the age of fourteen years, Don Francisco de Borja went
to Tor de Sillas as page of honour to the Infanta Dona
Catalina, the Elect-Emperor's sister, who was about to be
married to King Don Juan HI of Portugal.

When the marriage took place in 1525, Don Francisco
did not accompany his royal mistress to her new kingdom ;
because his father, who had for him a higher ambition, had
commanded his return to Saragossa to study rhetoric and
philosophy under his uncle, the Archbishop Don Juan.
Here he remained until he passed his seventeenth year ; and
in 1528 he entered the Court of the Elect-Emperor Carlos V,
where his robust physical beauty, his courteous manner, and
his brilliant ability, gained for him a notable reception,

Humanly speaking, this acceptance of service under
such a potentate is most astonishing in a youth of the
gracious piety of Don Francisco. The Elect- Emperor was
hot and reeking from the commission of what must have

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

seemed to be a perfectly appalling crime — the ghastly Sack
of Rome of 1527, the fierce beleaguerment of God's Vice-
crerent the Lord Clement P.P. VII in the Mola of Hadrian,
carnage, pillage, rape, rapine, sacred monastic enclosures
violated, virginity deflowered, nuns and the wives and
dauofhters of Roman citizens oambled for and ravished in
the public streets by the Elect-Emperor's unpaid army of
drunken Lutheran Goths and Catholic Catalans. It was to
the Court of this monarch that Don Francisco de Borja
brought the edacious flower of his maiden manlihood.

Amid voluptuous surroundings, he found that it was
better to marry than to burn; and, in 1529, being then of
the age of nineteen years, he led in marriage the Noble
Dofia Leonor of Portugal. The Elect-Emperor, to mark
imperial approval, perhaps, also, from the generous
benevolence of a man who himself is about to receive —
(he had come to terms with the Lord Clement P.P. VII,
and was hoping for the Dual Coronation,) — created Don
Francisco Marquess of Lombay.

The relations between Pope and Elect-Emperor were
after this fashion. Both were exhausted : both were
desirous of peace. Peace, then, was signed, and a per-
petual alliance, on the twentieth of June 1527. The Elect-
Emperor had gained territory from Venice, and detached
Genoa from France ; the Pope's Holiness had promised to
invest him with crown of Naples, (which his predecessor
the Catholic King Don Hernando of Spain had stolen from
the bastard Aragon dynasty in 1501); and formally to
crown him as Holy Roman Emperor. The Lord Clement
P.P. VII had gained a strong ally, who guaranteed to
subdue rebellious Florence for the pontifical nephew Duke
Alessandro de' Medici, to consolidate the alliance by
marrying the Bastard Dofia Margarita of Austria to the
said pontifical nephew ; and to procure the restoration of
pontifical authority in Emilia, Ravenna, and Cervia. They
had been hideous enemies, these two ; and the Elect-
Emperor had behaved abominably. Even now, he refused
to go to Monza or to Sant' x'\mbrogio at Milan for the Iron
Crown, or to the Lateran Basilica of Rome for the Golden
Imperial Diadem, as by precedent he would have been

302

The Brilliant Light

compelled to do, had he belonged to the House of Swabia.
But he was a Spaniard, arrogant, cruel, unscrupulous, and
infamously powerful ; and he insolently told the Pope's
Holiness that he had not the habit of running after crowns,
for, instead, they came to him.

If the coronation of the Successor of St. Peter be a
remarkable function, the coronation according to the
Roman Rite of the Successor of Caius Julius Caesar
Octavianus Augustus is but one degree less sumptuous.
It would be worth the while of any man of the Twentieth
Century to exchange lives with William of Hohenzollern,
for the sake of the opening which lies before him. In the
case of Carlos V, all ceremonies duly were observed. The
Lord Clement P.P. VII came to Bologna, a neutral city,
for the coronation, and the Elect-Emperor met Him there.
On the twenty-second of February 1530, in the Chapel of
the Apostolic Palace, the Iron Crown ^ was set upon the
imperial head. Two days later, in the Cathedral of San
Petronio, curtains were drawn around the imperial canopy
forming a pavilion wherein the Elect-Emperor stripped
naked for the anointing with holy oil and chrism. He was
ordained deacon, vested in the sacred imperial dalmatica,
endued with orb and sword and sceptre offered by reigning
sovereigns, God's Vicegerent crowned him with the high
closed Double Crown of Empire and heralds proclaimed
him

Caesar

ROMANORUM ImPERATOR SeMPER AUGUSTUS MUNDI

Tonus DoMiNus Universis Dominis Universis Princi-
piBus ET PopuLis Semper Venerandus.

These things having been done. Pope and Emperor
appeared in the cathedral porch. There, Caesar Carlos V
vested in full imperial insignia, held the Pontiff's stirrup as
He mounted, and led His palfrey several paces, as a public
act of homage and allegiance to Him By Whose Sanction
Kings Do Reign. Then, he mounted his own charger, and

1 A plain gold band, studded with uncut gems, round whose inner rim runs
one of the Nails that nailed our Divine Redeemer to the Cross of Calvary
hammered into a flat band to press the brows of him who wears the Iron
Crown. It may be seen enshrined in the Treasury of the Cathedral at Monza.

3°3

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

rode by the Lord Clement P.P. VII's side through the city
of Bologna making knights, as the way is, when the Pontiff
left him.

It is probable enough that the Marquess Don Franciso
de Borja witnessed, and assisted at, this superb ceremony.
He was attached to the personal suite of Caesar Carlos V :
but there is another circumstance that implies that, in
some way or another, most presumably in the flesh, he was
brought into contact with the Pope's Holiness about this
time. It is that a little later, the Supreme Pontiff con-
ferred an extraordinary favour on his illustrious House,
consisting of Five Privileges granted to Duke Juan II of
Gandia, his heirs and descendants of both sexes, and whom-
soever they might marry, in consideration of the signal

SERVICES RENDERED TO THE HOLY SEE BY THE HOUSE OF

Borgia. This unmistakeably distinct statement shews that
calumnies and lampoons of Messer Francesco Guicciardini
had made no ill impression on the Lord Clement P.P. VII,
who actually had met that writer when he was the guest of
the bas bleu Madonna Veronica Gambara during the corona-
tion festivities at Bologna. The fable of Borgia iniquity is
a plant of later growth. In 1531 the House was considered
to have rendered signal services, deserving recognition, for
a perpehtal memorial. Hence the granting of the Five
Privileges which follow here.

" To any confessor whom they may select,^ powers to absolve them
" from the gravest ecclesiastical censures and penalties : to commute the
" obligation of fasting to almsgiving : once a year to absolve them in cases
" usually reserved to the Holy See ; or from any oath or vow but those
*' generally excepted.

" Special indulgences for the hour of Death, and for visits to a churchy
" or an altar : also, for every mass offered byd, scion of the House (he being
" in priest's orders), or for any scion of the House, indulgences equal to
" those which might be gained at the altars of San Sebastiano, San Lorenzo,
" Santa Pudentiana, and Santa Maria de Panis in Rome.

Ill

" Permission to use Ladicinia (all food made of milk and eggs) and
1 In Catholic countries one is bound to use the clergy of one's own parish,

304

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meatji on fast days throughout the year : this permission to extend to
guests and servants of the family. Permission to take luncheon at mid-
day, and dinner at night. Permission to receive the sacraments within
prohibited times.- Permission to be buried on any day in the year,
Easter alone excepted.

" Priests who are scions of the House of Borgia may anticipate or
postpone their recitation of the Breviary Offices without observing the fixed
hours, reciting the whole office at once, or dividing it at their pleasure.

" To female scions of the House of Borgia, or connections by
marriage, liberty once a month to enter the enclosure of nuns,^ taking with
them four others to converse with the nuns, and to eat with them, pro-
vided only that they do not remain for the night." [La heroica vida, etc.,
del grande San Francisco de Borja, by Cardinal Alvaro Cienfuegos. Madrid,
1 71 7. I. iii. 3, 4.

The marriage of the Marquess Don Francisco, and the
Marchioness Dona Leonor, of Lombay, resulted in the birth
of eight children, who were,

Don Carlos, the heir :

Don Juan, Count of Ficalho ; Viceroy of Portugal ; Ambassador of King

Don Felipe HI.; Author of Empresas Morales (1^81); Married to

Dona Lorenza Onaz de Loyola, heiress of Don Beltrano, Sehor de

Loyola :
Don Alvaro, Marquess of Alcaguizes ; Ambassador of King Don

Felipe HI to the Holy See :
Don Hernando, Knight of the Order of Calatrava :
Don Alonso, Chamberlain to the Empress Maria :
Dona Isabella, married Don Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, Marquess

of Denia, Count of Lerina : (from this marriage descends the ducal

house of Lerina :)
Dona Juana, married Don Juan Enriquez de Almanas, Marquess of

Alcanices :
Dona Dorotea, nun at the monastery of Poor Clares in Gandia.

Six years the Marquess Don Francisco spent in the
duties of a husband, father, and courtier. In 1536, he
accompanied Caesar Carlos V on a futile vainglorious

1 Milk and meat were forbidden during Lent, and on every Saturday
throughout the year.

2 e.g., one might marry in Lent or Advent.

3 To enable the Borgia ladies sometimes to see their relations in the
Monastery of Poor Clares, whose Rule is one of the strictest.

305 U

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

expedition into Provence. Harassed by the French com-
mander Montmorency, his vast preparations all nullified,
his troops wasted by disease and discredited by disaster,
half his army hors de combat by reason of famine and plague,
two months of inglorious campaigning sufficed for Caesar
Carlos V. The French raised the peasantry against him ;
his retreat became a rout ; and only a shattered fragment
of his once-magnificent army reached the gates of Milan.
Burning to retrieve his shame in the eyes of Europe, he
launched a second vast expedition against Algiers ; only to
encounter a second ignominious disaster. Such were the
Marquess Don Francisco de Borja's experiences of war.

In 1 537, died in the monastery of Poor Clares at Gandia,
the Suor Maria Gabriella (Doiia Maria de Aragona y Luna)
widow of the murdered Duke of Gandia (bastard of the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI), and grandmother of the Mar-
quess Don Francisco. The same year, also, death claimed
his brother Don Rodrigo, who had enjoyed the Cardinal-
Diaconate of San Niccolo in Car cere Tulliano only one year.

In 1539, an event occurred which fundamentally affected
the Marquess Don Francisco. He and his wife the Mar-
chioness Dofia Leonor, were lord- and lady-in-waiting to
Caesar*s wife, the Empress Dona Isabella. While Caesar
was at Toledo trying to wring a grant of money from the
Cortes of Castile, a sudden illness took the Empress,andshe
died. The Marquess and Marchioness of Lombay were en-
trusted with the duty of bringing the imperial corpse for burial
to Elvira. There, was performed the ceremony of verification.
Before the opened coffin, the Marquess Don Francisco was
required to swear before the magistracy, that its contents
were the mortal relics of the Empress Isabella. Corruption
had set in, completely ravaging the dead : the face was like
no human face and totally unrecognizable. The Marquess
Don Francisco swore, not from recognition, but from
knowledge that the coffin had never left his care. But a
permanent impression scathed and branded him. He saw
Death the Inevitable, the Horrible. Life at its highest and
best, such as he himself enjoyed, offered no equivalent to,
no consolation for, the end which none escape. He resolved

to qualify for life eternal.

306

The Brilliant Light

Perhaps the most prominent note in the Spanish cha-
racter is sing-lemindedness. It can pursue a single aim with
a concentration of energy, with a fulness and pertinacity of
unwavering will which is simply astounding. Is it kind
and noble : the kind nobility of Don Quixote de la Mancha
exemplifies Spanish ideal. Is it cruel : the ruthless remorse-
less impersonal cruelty of Torquemada makes worlds to
wince. Is it pious : it achieves complete disagreeable
detachment of soul from every earthly sentiment, possession,
hope, desire. Is it impious : a Spaniard will ravish an
abbess of eighty, the corpse of a virginal novice, the statue
of Truth. Is it gay : no lark in the sun on the morning of
Easter is gayer. Is it gloomy : black moonless night,
unstarred, brooding on pools obscure, shadowed by funeral
pines, is not more fathomless than the deep depth of gloom
veiling sad Spanish eyes. The sight of the dead Empress
Isabella drew that veil across the joy of living, for the
Marquess Don Francisco. He resolved to abjure the
world : he prayed that God would shew the way, and break
the bonds that bound him there. He was of the age of
nine and twenty years.

When he returned to Toledo, Caesar named him
Viceroy of Cataluna and Knight of the Order of Sant' Jago.
Entering with zeal on his new duties, he swept away the
brigands who made travelling dangerous and obstructed
commerce in his province. He found justice hard to come
by ; and the judges corrupt and venal. He reformed them
all. Hospitals for sick and needy, schools and colleges for
the education of the young, sprang up under his viceregal
rule. A Sixteenth Century Viceroy was responsible, not
to press or parliament or self-styled philanthropists ; but to
one earthly power alone — the Caesar. So long as his
province regularly paid its tribute, and gave no trouble to the
imperial exchequer, the Viceroy had absolute freedom. He
was a despot in all but name. On this account, a Viceroy
who laboured for his people's welfare was something of a
novelty. The piety of the Marquess Don Francisco grew
intenser ; he changed his habit ; going to Holy Communion
once a week instead of once a month. He was trying to
detach himself from the world — that despotic Viceroy.

307

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Presently, there came a new kind of religious man,
neither monk, nor friar, nor secular priest (to speak strictly),
but a priest, one Padre Aretino Aroaz, "of the company of
Jesus," he said ; and he preached before the Viceroy at
Barcelona. From him, the Marquess Don Francisco heard
the marvellous history of the marvellous man, the Sefior
Don Ifiigo Lopez de Recalde, of the House of Loyola ;
who, born in 1491, the year before the Borgia Lord
Alexander P.P. VI began to rule Christendom from Rome,
had followed a career of arms ; taken a serious incapaci-
tating wound in 1521 ; become converted ; gone on a
pilgrimage to Nuestra Sefiora, the MnrpoirdpSsvog, of Mont-
serrat, in 1522; lived ten months in an hermitage at
Manresa ; studied theology in that same city of Barcelona ;
testified everywhere to his faith in Christ ; been imprisoned
by the Spanish Inquisition for heresy — six weeks at Alcala,
three weeks at Salamanca ; studied theology again in Paris
from 1528 to 1532; received Holy Order as a priest;
founded a Religion of military priest-knights of Christ ;
gained the sanction and benison of Christ's Vicar, the Lord
Paul P.P. Ill, for his "Company of Jesus" ;^ and given
to the world a book of Spiritual Exercises for the
training of the soul in counsels of perfection. All
this was of extreme interest and significance to the
Marquess Don Francisco. To know more, he enter-
tained a correspondence with this Padre Ifiigo de Loloya
in Rome.

This same year 1539, the Viceroy's brother Don Enrico
had news that the Lord Paul P. P. Ill deigned to raise him
to the Sacred College, as Cardinal-Deacon of San Nereo e
Sant' Achilleo, the Title of which previously had been held
by Cardinal Francisco de Borja, bastard of the Lord
Calixtus P.P. Ill who died excommunicate in 151 1.
Setting out for Rome to receive the cardinalitial insignia,
Don Enrico reached Viterbo, where he suddenly died in
September 1540. His epitaph in the Vatican Basilica
shews that no shame was known at this date on account of
descent from the invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI.

1 The Bull Regimini was not finally sealed till xxvii Sept. 1540,

The Brilliant Light

" Henricus . Gente . Borgia . natione . Hispanus .
Patria . Valentinus . Alexander . VI. . Pronepos .
Ducis . Gandiae . F . dum . in . maxima . spe . assurgeret .

ImMATURA . MORTE . HEU . NIMIUM . RAPTUS . EST .
SpIRITUS . IN . CAELO . CORPUS . HIC . QUIESCIT."

There were now no cardinals of the House of Borma.

In 1543, died the Duke Don Juan II. de Borja, father
of the Viceroy Marquess of Lombay, who now succeeded
to the Duchy of Gandia, the principaHties of Teano and
Tricarico, the counties of Chiaramonte, Lauria, and
Cerisfnola. Having" obtained Caesar's leave to resign the
Viceroyalty of Cataluna, Duke Don Francisco de Borja
returned to court, where he was appointed Master of the
Household of the Infanta Dona Maria de Portugral. This
princess was betrothed to the Infante Don FeHpe, son of
Caesar Carlos V ; and it appeared that worldly ties were not
to be untied, but tightened for the Duke of Gandia. But
the Portuguese Infanta died before marriage, her household
was dispersed ; and Duke Don Francisco retired to his
duchy, where he began to make plans for a new college for
the Company of Jesus (which perfectly had charmed him),
and for a new monastery of Dominican nuns in whom his
Duchess Dona Leonor was interested.

* # #

The year 1546, in a most signal manner marked the
Duke of Gandia's progress along the road of detachment
from the world.

The Duchess was sick. The Duke was praying for her
recovery. The Figure on the Crucifix spoke to him.

What follows here rests on sworn testimony at the sub-
sequent process of canonization, later to be described ; a
formal legal process that, from its scope and stringency,
demands as much consideration as the Report of a Royal
Commission, or, better still, a Decision of the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council, in modern England.

The Figure on the Crucifix spoke : " — oyo una voz
sensible, carinosa e distinta, que Christo articulaba desde
aquella estatua muerta." ^

1 La heroica vida, etc., del grande Sail Francisco dc Borja, by Cardinal Alvaro
Cienftiegos. Madrid, 171 7, III. i. 1J5.

309

chronicles of the House of Borgia

It said : " Si tu quieres que te dexe a la Duquesa mas
tempo in esta vida, yo lo dexo en tu mano ; pero te aviso
que a ti no te conviene esto." If thou askest Me to leave
the Duchess longer in this life, I will do so ; but I warn thee
that this will not be profitable to thee}

The Duke of Gandia repeated this to his confessor. He
also told him his reply, which was as follows :

" What is this, O my God ? Dost Thou indeed commit to a weak
and trembling hand like mine, a Power which belongs to Thy Divine
Omnipotence ? What art Thou, O my Only Good ? And what am I,
that Thou should'st desire to do my will ; when I was sent into the world
for the purpose of doing Thine Alone, and of obeying, not only Every
Command, but Every Inspiration of my Rightful Master ? What
Immeasurable Goodness is This, that, in order to shew favour to a
creature. Thou should'st be willing to abrogate Thy Supreme Prerogative
as his Creator ! Since it is my wish to belong, not to myself, but alto-
gether to Thee, I desire that, not my will, but Thine, should be done.
Leave nothing O Lord to the decision of Francisco de Borja. Remember
how often his feelings have blinded him and led him astray. Surely I
cannot do less in return for Thine Infinite Condescension and Gracious
Generosity, than to offer to Thee the lives of my wife and children as
well as mine own, and everything, in fact, that I possess in the world.
From Thine Hand I have received all : to Thee do I return all : earnestly
entreating Thee to dispose of all according to Thy Good Pleasure."

The Duchess died.

It is unnecessary to engage in a disquisition anent the
Speaking Crucifix. It is conceivable that He, Who made
the ass of Balaam speak, could also make a statue speak.
It already has been said that this history deals with matters
which, as far as little human knowledge goes — and that is
not far — , are out of the course of nature. The affair most
rigorously has been investigated, and admitted, by a com-
petent tribunal, whose verdict must be taken as going as
near the path of truth as it is possible for a human tribunal
to go. Therefore, the item of the Speaking Crucifix, with
other items of supernatural manifestation, will be related as
they occur, without attempts to explain them away, or to
fit them with an adequate apology. If it be granted that they
be possible, they at once become extremely probable. The

^ La Jieroica vida, etc., del grande San Francisco de Borja, by Cardinal Alvaro
Cienfufgos. Madrid, 1717, IILi. 115.

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length and elaboration of the Duke of Gandia's reply are
considered, by some, as proving it to have been composed
after the event, and with due consideration. This con-
clusion is quite worthy of notice, because it is open to serious
and practical objection. The few men, and the many
women, who habitually pray to God and to His saints, who
are in direct frank frequent and habitual communication
with the other world, will be perfectly well aware of the
spontaneous ease with which ideas automatically sort them-
selves, the formal phrases of the special language automati-
cally flow, from the lips of those whose life is one continual
prayer. To these the Duke of Gandia's utterance presents
no difficulty : they recognize a foreign tongue with which
they chance to be acquainted. Also, it is quite permissible
to understand those words as not having been uttered
actually, but as clothing the sentiments of the mind of the
Duke of Gandia.

Viewing the affair from a human stand-point, ordinary
men will regard Duke Don Francisco's conduct as abhorrent,
as heartless, as utterly brutal. It was. Granting the
circumstances, he deliberately sacrificed the life of his wife.
But his conduct was purely superhuman, purely super-
natural. He was one of the many Roman Catholics of the
Sixteenth Century — the Twentieth is less prolific — who
really and truly believed In The Life Of The World To
Come. His actions prove it. He knew that every man
inevitably must submit to the hideous ordeal of surrendering
to God's enemy. Death, as the price of entrance to eternity.
He judged that, the sooner this ordeal was over, the better
it would be. Therefore, confident in the merits of his
Saviour and his wife's, the chance of translation being
offered, he incontinently accepted on her behalf It was
the act of a truly Christian, of a cruelly unworldly man.
" He wished to be rid of his wife ! "

He did wish. Is it wrong to accept the joy of heaven
for one loved, suffering here on earth } " But his wish was
selfish ! "

His wish was selfish. The Duke of Gandia gained by
the death of his wife. He gained liberty to tear the flesh
of his gracious body with thongs and scourges. He gained

chronicles of the House of Borgia

liberty to abdicate his duchy, his marquessate, his two
principalities, his three counties ; to strip himself of every
farthing of his enormous wealth ; to forsake his home, his
children, his palaces, and his power ; to starve on foul bread
and fouler water ; to wear odiously ugly clothes ; to do
menial service for his natural inferiors ; to wheel manure
in barrows ; worst of all, to herd with vulgar men ; to make

himself disliked and scorned and hated, literally : if it

be selfish to desire these things, then the Duke of Gandia
was a selfish man. " It is impossible to admire him ! "

People who say these silly things make the mistake,
commit the injustice, are guilty of the absurd inconsistency,
of judging the Duke of Gandia by comparing him to their
own ideal. He must be regarded as he was ; not as he
mieht have been if he had imitated the ideal of some

Twentieth-Century plumber, haberdasher, or journalist. It
is not necessary to admire him. He never courted admira-
tion ; nor imitation either. What he did was personal
between himself and his God. He acted up to his lights.
He obeyed the voice of his conscience. He took for his
ideal, that of San Francesco d'Assisi,

NuDUs NUDUM Christum sequens,

He had the right. The affair was his. And his deeds
can be related only : for, to use them to teach a lesson or
to point a moral would be like a vain beating of the air.
Lessons in this department of knowledge are given by no
human instructor ; and they are given solely to the hearts
of willing learners.

The first hindrance was removed.

A few days after the death of the Duchess, Pere Pierre
Lefevre of the Company of Jesus arrived at Gandia, by
previous arrangement, to lay the foundation stone of the
college which the Duke was building for the Jesuits, He
brought with him the Book of Spiritual Exercises written
by the General Padre liiigo de Loyola. The Duke of
Gandia took advantage of his presence to perform these
Spiritual Exercises, consisting of prayers, pious meditations,
and rigorous and systematic searchings of the heart. Feeling
profited by this experience, he wrote to the Lord Paul

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P.P. Ill, begging Him to pronounce Apostolic Approval
of the book. In course of post, (which the Sixteenth
Century carried on by means of private couriers,) that is to
say in the course of a few months, he received from the
Holiness of the Pope a Brief of Recommendation. The
Bull of Approval was issued on the thirty-first of July

'548. , ,

This Brief caused him to resolve to join the Company of
Jesus ; and he wrote his resolution to the General without
delay. When the death of his Duchess made him free to
renounce the world, he seriously had thought of becoming
a Friar Minor. His name Francisco Qrave him San Francisco
d'Assisi, the founder of the Religion of Friars Minor, as
his patron-saint : the abject poverty, the singular contempt
of the world, the awful austerities of the Franciscans admir-
ably agreed with his habit of mind. He consulted his
resident chaplain who himself was a Friar Minor. To this
friar, there came a vision of Madonna Mary saying, " Tell
the Duke to enter the Company of my Son." To Duke
Don Francisco, also, a statue of Madonna Mary spoke the
same words. Hence his jfinal resolution.

Padre Ribadaneira of the Company of Jesus, who,
afterwards was his confessor, and who wrote the life of the
Duke of Gandia and swore before five tribunals of the truth
of every word that he had written, says (xv. 238) that, for
the next seven days, Duke Don Francisco was afflicted
with an apparition of a sumptuous mitre always floating
above his head. He had much fear. He knew that, when
a person of his quality relinquished a brilliant secular
career, an equally brilliant ecclesiastical one lay open to
him. This was the very last thing that he desired. He
swore to God that, unless the apparition left him, and he
should be allowed to practise poverty during his whole life
yet to come, he would refuse to don the clerical habit : for
he felt the prospect of dignity to be a danger. Then the
apparition left him : How exceedingly natural is this
example of unconscious cerebration. It would have been
strange indeed if the Duke's crushed and bruised humanity
had not asserted itself in phantasmal apparitions.

The singular reply of the General of the Company of

313

chronicles of the House of Borgia

Jesus shall be given in full. Its curious worldly care for the
worldly welfare of worldly people, its wonderful depth of
spirituality for him who is spiritually minded, its complete
grip of the subject, its polite piety, its discreet judgment,
its personal humility, its impersonal dignity, its authoritative
decision, its quaint gravity of form, stamp it as the work of
a great and powerful mind. Padre liiigo de Loyola wrote
as follows :

"Most Noble Lord: —

" It gave me great delight to hear of the resolution with which
God in His Infinite Goodness has inspired you. Since we, who are on
earth, are unable to render Him sufficient thanks for the favour which
He has been pleased to show to our humble Company, in calling you
to join it, I humbly beseech the angels and the saints who are now
enjoying His Presence in heaven to supply our deficiency in this respect.
I trust that Divine Providence will cause this decision of yours to be
the means of effecting much good, not only in regard to your own
soul, but to the souls of many others who may be led to follow your
example. As for us who are already members of the Company, we shall
strive to serve with increased devotion the Gracious Father, who has
given us so skilled a labourer to aid in the work of cultivating the
tender vine, which He has been pleased to entrust to my care, although
I am in every respect unworthy of the office. In the name of the Lord,
I therefore receive you at once as our brother, and shall henceforth
regard you as such. Most truly can I promise to feel for you, now, and
always, an affection proportioned to the large-hearted generosity with which
you desire to enter the House of God, there to serve Him more perfectly.

" With reference to your enquiries as to the time and manner of your
entrance into the Company, I have laid the matter before God in prayer.
It is my opinion that this change must be made with much caution and
deliberation, in order that you may not leave any of your immediate
duties unfulfilled ; otherwise it may not prove to be A.M.D.G. (Ad Maiorem
Dei Gloriam — To The Greater Glory Of God ; the motto of the Company
of Jhesus.) You had better keep the affair a secret at present ; at least
as far as it is possible to do, striving meanwhile so to arrange things as
to be free as soon as you can, and at liberty to carry out the plan you so
ardently desire to execute for the love of our Lord.

" In order to make myself more plainly understood, I may as well
say that, as your daughters are of a marriageable age, I think you ought
to endeavour to see them suitably settled. It would be well if you were
also to choose a suitable wife for your eldest son, the Marquess of
Lombay. In regard to your other sons, it would be better not to
leave them dependent upon their elder brother : but to assign to each a
suitable and sufficient income of his own ; allowing them meanwhile

The Brilliant Light

to pursue their university career. It is reasonably to be hoped that, if
they fulfil, as I trust and believe they will, the promise of their youth,
the Emperor will extend to them the favour he has always shown to you :
and will bestow upon them, when the right time comes, appointments in
keeping with their rank. You must also try and push on the various
buildings you have begun ; for I think it desirable that they should all be
completed, before the great change you are contemplating is generally made
known.

" Meanwhile, you cannot do better, since you are already a proficient
in most branches of human learning, than apply yourself to the study of
Theology. It is my wish that you should do this with much care and
pains ; for I should like you to take a doctor's degree in the University
of Gandia.

" I cannot conclude without inculcating upon you to take every
possible precaution in order to prevent this astonishing piece of news
from being prematurely divulged. I feel that I need add no more on
this head.

" I shall hope to hear frequently from you ; and I will try to give you all
the advice and assistance you may need. In the meantime, I shall
beseech our Lord to grant you all graces and blessings, in ever-increasing
abundance.

That truly is an extraordinary letter. The two men
had never met. Only a few letters at long intervals had
passed between them ; yet there is not the slightest doubt
or misunderstanding. The humble priest, readily but not
avidly, calmly but not arrogantly accepts the role of mentor
to the brilliant duke. He is very glad to get a duke — who
will have done with dukedom : but he will allow no looking
back when once the hand is put to the plough. The
severance must be absolute and irrevocable ; and, to this
end, Padre liiigode Loyola gives an exhibition of plain and
practical common sense expressed in terms of courteous
and definite command, It is my wish — I thinkyo2i ought

So during the next four years the Duke of Gandia
laboured to carry out the orders of his ecclesiastical superior,
removing the only hindrances that bound him to the world.
His late wife's sister Doiia Juana de Meneses acted as
mother to his children. In 1548, he married his heir the
Marquess Don Carlos of Lombay, at the age of eighteen
years, to Dofia Magdalene de Centellas y Cardona,
Countess of Oliva. In 1549, he married his daughter Dona
Isabella to Don Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, Marquess

315

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

of Denia and Count of Lerina. He finished the buildings of
the Dominican monastery at Gandia, and of the Jesuit
College which is richly endowed with houses for poor
scholars, and for children of the Maranas or Jews on
condition of baptism. He also obtained charters from the
Lord Paul P. P. HI and from Caesar Carlos V. raising this
college to the rank of an university.

At last, in 1550, he left his duchy of Gandia and
journeyed toward Rome, escorted by a retinue of thirty
servants, and his second son Don Juan de Borgia of the
age of seventeen years. He had to pay the penalty of his
extraordinary notoriety. On his passage through Ferrara,
the reigning Duke (who himself came of Borgia stock) met
him with fetes and processions. At Florence, Duke Cosmo
de' Medici accorded a state-reception. He was going to
renounce the world ; and the world made a triumphal
progress of his going. His desire to slink into the lowest
place won him attention verging on adoration. His chagrin
was undisguised. He envoyed an avant-courier to ask
his superior's leave to enter Rome by night avoiding
publicity. Padre Inigo de Loyola peremptorily refused :
for the Duke of Gandia was too good an object-lesson to be
thrown away. His entrance into the Eternal City, whose
citizens even in 1550 revered the memory of Borgia, was
like that of a king- who comes into his kino-dom. The Lord
Paul P.P. HI sent ambassadors to welcome him, and to
offer lodging in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican : but
the Duke of Gandia hurried to the Jesuit College ; doing
obeisance at the feet of the General and Founder of the
Company of Jesus. So these two unique personalities first
met, whom now men call Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint
Francis of Borcjia.

Padre Inigo de Loyola immensely admired the Duke of
Gandia. This last, whose gracious and brilliant figure
caused him to be compared to Apollo and gained for him
the nickname The Modern Narcissus, already was known
to fame as a ruler and orator born. He was the master of
enormous wealth and influence ; and his only ambition in
life was to strip himself of these and abnegate his will at the
command of another. During his sojourn in Rome, he

•^16

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lavished his revenues on the foundation of the Roman
College. The honourable title of Founder was offered to
him by his own General : but he begged to be excused ; and
the title afterwards w^as accepted by the Lord Gregory
P.P. XIII, Who named the college The Pontifical
Gregorian University of Rome. Meanwhile, he sent a
courier to Augsburg, where Caesar Carlos V was, with a
letter in which he asked his sovereign's leave to resign all
his titles and estates. While he was .waiting for the reply,
his General obliored him to fulfil all the duties of his ducal
rank ; whereby he was brought into intimate relations with
the Holiness of the Pope and the Curial Cardinals. Even
in this august assemblage he won regard. The Pope and
the cardinals became so fond of him, that they disliked the
notion of allowing so brilliant a man to bury himself in the
severe Religion of Padre Inigo de Loyola. It was a waste
of talent, they said ; and the Supreme Pontiff proposed
instantly to name him cardinal, like his dead brothers Don
Rodrio-o and Don Enrico.

It did appear to be a waste of talent. But that was a
personal account which the Duke of Gandia would have to
settle with his Judge. In these specimens of abnormal
humanity, interference invariably is fatal, owing to natural
forces. It always is the safest and wisest plan, not to
hinder, but to help a sane well-meaning man, who is aware
of his responsibilities, to do the thing which he wants to do.
For human nature is capable of amazing outbreak, violence,
and divarication, where it is not free.

After four months in Rome, suddenly, and with nO'
leave-taking, the Duke of Gandia fled to Spain. The
prospect of a scarlet hat had become too real, too terrifying.
Of course there is not the slightest danger that a man may
be made cardinal against his expressed desire. The
cardinalate is not an infectious disease like the plague, or
scarlet fever ; nor is it a sacrament, like baptism, which
leaves an ineradicable mark upon the soul. It conceivably
is possible that only brutal rudeness and incivility will
suffice for its avoidance : — but they will suffice. And it
can always be renounced, rare though renunciations be.
The Duke of Gandia was a very gracious lord, in full

317

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

possession of all his faculties, utterly uninfluenced ; and, no
doubt, he wished to avoid an occasion when his conscience
would direct him to be unoracious or uncivil to the
benevolence of the Holiness of the Pope. In his flight, he
first went to the castle of Loyola, where his General had been
born, to thank Heaven for the nativity of that marvellous
man : then, onward again, a few miles to the little town of
Onata in Guipuscoa, where there was a house of the Com-
pany of Jesus. The Lord Paul P.P. HI died in Rome this
year 1550 : and was succeeded by the Lord Julius P.P. HI.
The Duke of Gandia received a Brief from Caesar
Carlos V, dated the twelfth of February 1551, giving per-
mission, to divest himself of rank and to renounce the world,
with very much regret at losing the allegiance of his most
brilliant subject, and solely because Caesar felt that to refuse
would be opposition to the Divine Will. He made the
formal act of renunciation before a notary at Ofiate ;
bestowing his duchy, his principalities, and his counties on
his heir, the Marquess Don Carlos of Lombay ; distributing
his estates and wealth amono- his children. He laid aside

his sword, which, according to the fashion of the courtiers of
Caesar Carlos V, he rode cock-horse, (so to speak,) as it
hung between his legs. He had his hair cut short, and
the tonsure shaved on his head. He changed his ducal
robes for the shabby ill-fitting black habit of a Jesuit. On
Whit Saturday he was ordained priest ; and the Duke
of Gandia disappeared in Padre Francisco de Borja. In
his after life, he never would allow of any allusion to his
former style, except when he chanced to hear of the refusal
by the Company of Jesus to admit a would-be but unsuit-
able novice, when he would say, " Now I thank God from
the bottom of my heart for having made me a duke ; for
assuredly there was nothing else about me which could
have induced the superiors to accept me " : an opinion
which shews that Padre Francisco's extremely poor opinion
of himself betrayed him into exaggeration — a little human
touch which brinafs him nearer to human understandinof.

He said his first mass privately in the chapel of the
castle of Loyola, on the first of August 155 1, the Festival
of St. Peter's Chains ; and gave Holy Communion to his

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second son, Don Juan de Borja, who, having found it hard
to leave his father, was losing his young heart to Dona
Lorenza Oiiaz de Loyola, heiress of the Seiior Don Beltrano
de Loyola.

Padre Francisco's second mass was a public function.
All the people round about persisted in nicknaming him
" Lo Santo Duque," The Holy Duke. The Lord Julius
P.P. Ill granted a plenary indulgence to all who should
assist at this mass, on the usual conditions of confession and
communion. To satisfy the multitude the mass was to be
said in the city of Vergara : but no church would hold the
crowd, and the altar was erected in a field by the hermitage
of Santa Ana. It began at nine o'clock in the morning of
the fifteenth of November 1 5 5 1 , and continued till three in the
afternoon, so overwhelming was the number of communi-
cants. (The ordinary mass lasts half an hour.) The sermon
was preached by Padre Francisco in the courtly Castilian
dialect : but it is recorded that people of all provinces under-
stood him, even those whose native tongue was Basque, A
certain Don Juan de Moschera publicly cursed him ; to
whom Padre Francisco instantly went, begging pardon for
being worth a cursing.

He set up as a hermit in a wooden cell near the Jesuit
House at Ofiate ; and gained fame as a preacher, especially
(strange to say) among the learned clergy. Men who take
pleasure in approving of others, newcomers, of the same
trade, are very rare : but for the clergy to approve of a
preacher is rarer. He wrote a manual of Advice to Preachers,
which had an unusual vogue. He was very fond of the
breviary hymn Vexilla Regis prodeunt, (The Royal Banners
forward go ;) and repeated with delight of soul the stanza,

" Arbor decora et fulgida,
Ornata regis purpura :
Electa digno sHpite,
Tarn Sancta Membra tangere.

" O Tree of glory, Tree most fair, ordained those Holy Limbs to bear;
How bright in purple robe It stood, the purple of a Saviour's Blood."

(" Hymns Ancient and Modern.")

He worked miracles. A lady had two splinters of
wood ; the one was unnotable, the other was a Relique of

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chronicles of the House of Borgia

the True Cross : but which was the Relique was not known.
Padre Francisco, to decide, broke them both ; from one,
Blood dropped upon a piece of paper. An Infanta of
Spain put him to a similar test : but in this case the relique
was said to be a piece of the skin of St. Bartholomew
Apostle (he was flayed alive), with another. Padre Fran-
cisco tore both skins ; and again blood dropped from one
on linen. The blood-stained paper and the blood-stained
linen, with both reliques, are in the monastery of Poor
Clares at Madrid. Multitudes came to see the quondam
duke as hermit ; they said that they saw a radiant nimbus
lighting the pallor of his brow ; and to prevent Padre
Francisco from becoming puffed up, (an excessively unne-
cessary precaution, one would think,) his superior at Onate,
Padre Ochiva, set him to hard menial labour, to dig,
saw, carry stones, chop wood, light fires, help in the kitchen,
and wheel barrows of manure. The General, to whom
every detail was reported, sent Padre Francisco to preach
in Portugal, where the Company of Jesus was little known ;
and his mission met with great results. With himself
he was most severe. All physical beauty was gone from
his once gracious body, macerated in ceaseless austerities.
He took the habit of signing his letters Francisco Pecador,
" Francis the Sinner " : but his sapient General promptly
stopped that practice, saying that Singularity was not the
seed of Sanctity. All letters which came to him addressed
to The Duke of Gandia, he returned, inscribed Not /or me,
F^^ancisco S.J.

The Lord Julius P.P. Ill issued a Brief, offering him a
scarlet hat. He sent a firm refusal in reply. It has been
said that he feared to accept the cardinalate, lest he should
be elected Pope at the next Conclave. The statement is
absurd ; because

(a) in theory, the election of the Successor of St. Peter
is the work of the Holy Spirit ; and ubi Spiritus ibi
libej'tas, where the Spirit is there is liberty : not
cardinals alone, but humble priests as well, or newly
tonsured clerks, or any Christian male, is eligible :
— there is no such absurd thingr as a restriction on

The Brilliant Light

the Right of the Divinity to choose his Vicar ; and
Padre Francisco, therefore, was as Hable in black,
as he would have been in scarlet :
()3) if he had been elected Pope, it was open to him to
refuse or to accept the Call.

Some Roman Catholics hold that he could not have
refused. But Popes can abdicate, and have abdicated !
But would he have refused ? Would he have been allowed
by the General of the Company of Jesus to refuse? There
is no knowing". Such a case has never occurred.

There never has been a Jesuit Pope. It would have
been an unique, an unheard of situation, — the Company of
Jesus in full power, armed with plenary authority, absolute
in all the world, practising unscrupulous, uncompromising
Christianity. The conditions of the Millennium would stand
in a fair way of being fulfilled — to speak by the Book. —
But Padre Francisco de Borja refused the scarlet hat ; for
he wished for himself complete detachment from the world,
and nothing more, here.

Returning from his mission in Portugal to Spain, he
evangelized the provinces of Castile and Andalusia. At
Alicaza, he healed a cripple girl. At Valladolid, he raised
the dead to life. Two teeth being knocked out of the head
of a great preacher, his companion, they were replanted by
Padre Francisco : and never old age nor decay affected them.
The General named him Provincial for Spain and the Indies ;
and Father and Founder of the Company of Jesus in
Spain and Portugal. His preaching converted the rich
and worldly Bishop of Plasencia who returned to his religious
duties. Padre Francisco introduced the Company of Jesus
at Valladolid, Medina, San Lucar, Burgos, Granada,
Plasencia, Murcia, Sevilla, Valencia. Did he, in passing
through Valencia, find any of the old stock of Don Juan
Domingo de Borja who, exactly a century earlier, had
given the Lord Calixtus P.P. Ill to Rome and Christen-
dom ?

He was the first to establish the Jesuit Noviciates ;
and the Noviciate at Simancas was his favourite. Here
are his methods of dealing with novices. A certain novice

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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

of noble birth and breeding, but pious all the same, found
it intolerable that he should have to wait upon himself with
no menial to truss his points, or brush his clothes, or sweep
his floor to serve him. Padre Francisco heard his com-
plaint ; and, having there another novice, who in the world
had been a valet, he ordered him on his obedience to serve
his noble brother. The thing was done ; and in a little
while, the noble novice sensibly took shame at his own
singularity, as might have been expected ; and dispensed
with further service. Another noble novice found his
narrow cell and his hebdomadal shirt altogether insupport-
able. Padre Francisco promptly furnished him with a large
room, and a clean shirt every day ; and, presently, he grew
to hate his privileges, renounced them, and assimilated
himself with the rest. Padre Francisco at least believed
what already has been said here, viz., that the wise man does
not hinder, but helps the sane well-meaning man who is
aware of his responsibilities, to do the thing that he desires
to do : for, if that thing be undesirable, the doer quickly will
find it out, and so convince himself ; while the thing undone,
the wish unsatisfied, causes the unconvinced to hanker
after, to struggle for, and to revolt. Once when Padre
Francisco was visitino- the Colleo-e of Sant' Andrea of
Valladolid, the resources were at an end ; and there was
neither food nor money in the house. Natheless, he
ordered the bell to be rung as usual for supper though the
board was bare ; and, in the nick of time, there came to the
outer door an old grey-headed man with a huge lovely boy,
strangers in the city, who brought baskets of meat and
bread and fish and eggs and wine, and a purse of money :
whom the pious have called St. Andrew and an Angel.

The year 1555 saw three Popes; the Lord Julius
P.P. Ill, Who died and was succeeded by the Lord
Marcellus P.P. II, Who died and was succeeded by the
Lord Paul P.P. IV.

In 1556, Padre Ifiigo de Loyola died; and Padre
Francisco instantly began to invoke his departed chief, —
Holy Ignatius of Loyola, pray to the Lord our God for 7ne ;
— while Padre Jago Laynez was elected General of the
Company of Jesus.

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The Brilliant Light

In 1558, also died the Holy Roman Emperor Carlos V,
who long had given himself to religion. On his death-bed,
Imperial Caesar cried for " santo Padre Francisco de
Borja " to assist him in his agony. But the Jesuit was
unable to arrive except in time to preach the funeral ora-
tion. Caesar had shown to the priest the unparalleled
respect and honour of naming him executor of his will ; an
office which the unworldliness of Padre Francisco impelled
him to decline. The royal and imperial family, conscious
of the Kvdog which they would gain by his acceptance,
appealed against his decision. The Princess- Regent also
invoked the General, who issued a command upon obe-
dience ; which Padre Francisco perforce obeyed, carried
out the provisions of the will of Caesar Carlos V, taking as
little as possible of his own share, to avoid offence. Of
course, all he had would go to the funds of his order, his
vow of poverty debarring him from personal possessions.

In 1559, he was in Portugal once more, sick of an inter-
mittent fever at Evora. The people of this country, natural
enemies of Spain and Spaniards, so loved Padre Francisco
that they said he must be a Portuguese. During his sick-
ness, he wiled the weary waiting and cheered his soul by
setting music to the anthem Regina caeli laetare (" Rejoice,
O Queen of Heaven"), and the hundred and seventy-six
verses of Psalm cxviii, Vulgate Version, Beati hnmaculati^
(Psalm cxix. Authorized Version, " Blessed are the unde-
filed in the way.") This year, his sister Dona Juana de
Borja y Aragona (Suor Juana de la Cruz,) died In The
Odour of Sanctity. She was the first Abbess of the
Royal Monastery of Sandalled (Discalced) Carmelites in
Madrid. This year 1559, died the Lord Paul P.P. IV and
the Lord Pius P.P. IV succeeded Him. In 1560, Padre
Francisco calmed the terrified population of Oporto during a
total eclipse of the sun, spontaneously preaching an im-
passioned sermon on the eclipse, of mortal sin, which veils
man's soul from the Sun of Righteousness, Then, again,
sickness laid him low ; neuralgia, paralysis, ulcers. The
vile body was resisting the strain which he made it bear.

Restored to health in 1561, he was summoned to Rome
and named Vicar-General of the Company of Jesus. Let

chronicles of the House of Borgia

It never be forgotten that, while the Borgia Pontiffs paved
the way for, Padre Francisco de Borja governed the Jesuits
throughout the world while the General Padre Jago de
Laynez was present at, the CEcumenical of Trent. The
connection between the House of Borgia and the Triden-
tine Decrees is of enormous significance. Here, at last,
was the General Council for the Reformation of the Holy
Roman Church, summoned and legally constituted by law-
ful authority. For years, self-seeking malcontents, eccle-
siastical and royal, had howled for it. Now, it was come :
but the German schism was an accomplished fact. The
cry had gone through Christendom that Rome was effete,
corrupt, on the verge of decay and dissolution. And lo. She
arose in Her strength, and cut away the parasitic ulcers that
long had blurred with open wounds Her contours ; refur-
bished spiritual arms long rusted ; set Her house in order ;
and was ready again, like a giant refreshed, for Her inter-
minable affray. The Barque of Peter went into dock. The
Garden of Souls was weeded. The Council of Trent re-
formed the Holy Roman Church : and a Borgia, as General's
deputy, was ruling the Company of Jesus in all the world.

During four years, Padre Francisco was Vicar-General
in Rome. He preached often in the Spanish church of
San Giuseppe on Via del Monserrato. The Religion of
Padre liiigo de Loyola endured one of its numerous phases
of attack. In this world, things being as they are, to such
an institution a liability to disesteem is inevitable. Perse-
cutors and calumniators arose ; and Padre Francisco showed
a talent for successful defence. Having completely crushed
himself, he could bring to his cause an amount of irresistible
force of which the ordinary man, distracted by the whimsy
interests of this and that, is altogether unaware.

His behaviour, in one of those cases with which the
Holy Roman Church occasionally shocks the world, is quite
remarkable. His son Don Alvaro de Borja, who was about
the age of twenty-seven years, and Ambassador of Spain in
Rome, desired to marry Dofia Laniparte de Almansa y
Borja, daughter of his own sister Doiia Juana, and of the
age of about fourteen years. Padre Francisco refused to
countenance a marriage between his grand-daughter and his

324

The Brilliant Light

son, between uncle and niece : refused to ask the Pope's
Holiness for the necessary dispensation. Whereupon, Don
Alvaro approached the Lord Pius P.P. IV directly, in his
capacity of ambassador, and obtained the dispensation ;
while the Pope scolded Padre Francisco for his conduct in
the matter.

In 1565 Padre Jago Laynezdied. Deliberately shutting
their ears to his appeals, the Jesuits elected Padre Francisco
de Borja Prepositor-General of the Company of Jesus on the
second of July. With the single exception of the Roman
Pontiff, he now was the most powerful ruler in Christendom,
general of an army unrivalled in discipline, utterly reliable,
because voluntarily enlisted and morally ruled. Yet he
gave no sign of pride or pleasure. He was a perfect Jesuit,
humanely sensitive, completely self-distrustful. He said
" It is evident that our Lord has condescended to assume
the government of this Company since He sees fit to use so
deplorably unworthy an instrument." What words could
express more sincerely abject and unworldly humility than
those ?

Aut pati aut mori was his motto. As General, he
relaxed not one of the stern rigorous austerities with
which he kept under his body and brought it into sub-
jection. Every passion and appetite of his human nature
he deliberately killed. He slept little. He ate little. He
had freed himself from every earthly love.

What he might have been !

What he was !

A brilliant and gracious duke, master of territories and
boundless wealth, father of a noble family allied with the
bluest blood of Spain, honoured by his sovereign, re-
verenced by his equals, loved by his kin, adored by his
dependants.

A sinister shadow of a man, wracked with continual
pain, deliberately apart from all his kind, feared, disliked,
distrusted, alone, suffering, — alone.

Every day he systematically meditated during five
hours on superhuman things. Every morning and every
night, he subjected his conscience to rigorous examination,
and confessed even every impulse to evil thought. He

325

chronicles of the House of Borgia

prayed without ceasing. Once, when travelling in Spain
with Padre Bustamente, the two slept side by side on
the bare floor of a loft, because there was no room for
them in the inn. Padre Bustamente, being asthmatic, spat
all night long, unknowingly on the face of his companion,
who never moved. In the morning light, he was horrified
to see what he had done : but Padre Francisco consoled
him, saying that in all the world no more suitable place
could have been found. He had been very urgent with
his sister Dofia Juana, Abbess of the Poor Clares at
Gandia, that she should persevere in penance and mor-
tification till her life's end. Has there ever been a case
of a consistent Roman Catholic who has committed suicide
from religious melancholomania ? Rarely ; if ever : for the
Church, wisely recognising that peculiar temperament, has
provided a system where voluntary mortification has its
places, its rules, and may be practised by whoever will.

Padre Francisco had the gifts of intuition and of clear-
seeing, which generally are found developed respectively
in women and brute beasts. He knew when a house was
about to fall some time before it fell. He knew, on seeing
a courier from his eldest son, that an heir was born to
the Duke Don Carlos of Gandia. The courier did not
relish this intuition, thinking that he deserved reward for
his good news : of which disgust, also, Padre Francisco
was aware ; and gave reward. The greater the detachment
from the world, over worldly things the greater power is
gained. People who saw Padre Francisco during his
generalship, saw rays of mysterious light playing round
his head. The phenomenon of the electric aura now is
well-known ; and the camera will show it on occasion.
Often, in his trances of prayer, he was seen floating above
the ground.

In 1566 the Lord Pius P.P. IV died; and, succeeding
Him, the Lord Pius P.P. V. stopped his coronation pro-
cession at the Jesuit House in Rome, that He might pay
His respects to the holy General. In 1569 Padre Francisco
again was stricken with fever. Recovering, he made a
pilgrimage to the Holy House of Nazareth, which angels
carried over the sea from Palestine and set down at Loreto

326

The Brilliant Light

by Ancona, In 1571 the Pope's Holiness sent an em-
bassage to France and Spain and Portugal, to rouse the
sovereigns of Christendom against the Muslim Infidel. The
ambassadors were the Papal Nephew, the Lord Michele
Bonello, son of Madonna Gardina the Pope's sister, born at
Boschi near Alessandria, who at his august Uncle's first
creation in 1566 had been named Cardinal- Presbyter of the
Title of Santa Maria sopra Minerva with the cognomen
Alessandrino ; and Padre Francisco de Borgia, Prepositor-
General of the Company of Jesus. The two left Rome in
1 57 1. In Barcelona, they settled a long-standing dispute
between the government and the cathedral chapter ; for
Padre Francisco was ever a peacemaker. In the province
of Cataluna, which was not unmindful of him who had been
its viceroy, the ambassadors were received with the highest
honour.

The record of this journey, through the scenes of his
youthful glory, is one of the most pathetic things in human
history. This sinister emaciated phantom shabbily robed
in thread-bare black, whose thin lips bit perpetual pain ;
this great and narrow spirit with eyes tardy and grave,
furtively, drowsily, reluctantly, regarding earthly things,
having seen the heavenly ; this mendicant, whose com-
panion was a prince of the church sumptuous in ermine and
vermilion, — he was no stranger in Cataluna, where afore-
time as marquess, duke, and imperial viceroy he had
exercised despotic and sovereign rule. Now he thought no
place low enough, foul enough, for his deserts. He was in,
but not of, the world.

At Valencia, his children and his grandchildren knelt to
kiss his way-worn feet. They prayed him to visit his duchy
of Gandia. He refused. He was no longer of the world.

He preached for the last time in the cathedral of
Valencia — Valencia the shrine of the House of Borja.
Here, a century and a half earlier. Canon Alonso de Borja
had been raised to the bishopric. The Bishop of Valencia
became cardinal. The Cardinal of Valencia became the
strenuous Lord Calixtus P.P. III. From Xativa by
Valencia sprang Don Rodrigo de Lan^ol y Borja, Bishop
of Valencia, Cardinal of Valencia, the magnificent invincible

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chronicles of the House of Borgia

Lord Alexander P.P. VI. The splendid Don Cesare
(detto Borgia) also was Bishop of Valencia and Cardinal,
before he renounced the purple for the French duchy of
Valentinois. Three huge personalities had borne the name
that now was represented by this obscure wan figure whose
voice, whose magic pleading fading voice, thrilled in the aisles
of Valencia's fane. Here, in Valencia, the fire was kindled;
hence, from Valencia, blazed the all-devouring flame ; here,
in Valencia, the cresset glowed with steady brilliant light, so
shining before men that they might see good works, and
glorify the Father which is in heaven. Padre Francisco de
Borja preached for the last time in the cathedral of Valencia.
In France, the ambassadors met with no success. That
miserable country was in the throes of the Huguenot
Rebellion ; and the Queen- Dowager, Madame Caterina de'
Medici, ruled the maniac King. After travelling through
France in the winter, gaining converts and confirming the
churches, but failing in the object of their journey, the
ambassadors reached Turin ; and became guests of the
Duke of Savoy. Padre Francisco, utterly worn out with
exertion and anxiety, his vital forces being on the verge
of exhaustion, fell ill on the second of February, Candle-
mas Day 1572. The exigencies of courtly etiquette bored
him to distraction ; and he hurried on. Low Sunday found
him in Ferrara. Here, having concluded his ambassadorial
duties, the last remains of his strength departed. His
nephew, the Duke of Ferrara, gave him a royal escort, and
a royal litter, as he was too weak to ride, and sent him
onward to Rome. During this last journey, it was noticed
that, though he lay still, more like a corpse than a man, his
characteristic oresture of command remained with him to the
very end.

He attained the Flaminian Gate of Rome on the twenty-
eighth of September. All the Company of Jesus were there
to receive their dying General. He was carried to the
Jesuit House, and the last Sacraments of Unction and
Viaticum fortified his soul.

On the Festival of St. Michael Archangel, he lay a-dying.
The next day, his speech departed. His last words, the
last words of the sometime gracious and brilliant duke,

-.28

The Brilliant Light

the last words of the Jesuit General, were the words of a
simple little Christian child, " I long for Jesus!"

He had done with the Latin of the Church. He had
gone back to his mother-tongue, " A Jesus quiero."

On the first of October 1572, he died of a decline, being
of the age of two and sixty years.

■^ ^ .^

•vr "if' t5»

Instantly, the pious opinion was entertained that Padre
Francisco de Borja had died In The Odour of Sanctity.

It was found impossible to undress the corpse. Among
others, his brother Don Tommaso de Borja, the Viceroy of
Aragon, made an attempt to perform the last duties, but all
without success. This same Don Tommaso, who afterwards
became Archbishop of Saragossa, wrote a detailed history
of this phenomenon which he calls miraculous. Various
explanations are given of the sudden and complete rz^or
Tnortis, which, however, are mystical, not practical ones. It
is said that modesty prevented the disrobing, or that it was
intended to hide the scars of long-practised austerities, or
that the greatest reverence was due to the body which had
been the temple of the Holy Spirit.

His family, and all who in his life had known him,
looked upon Padre Francisco de Borja as a saint : as such,
they privately venerated his fragrant memory, and invoked
the aid of his intercession. No public honours were
accorded, for his right to these had not yet been made
clear : but it was alleged that these private invocations
produced marvellous results. Two shall be named. The
physicians attending the Duchess of Uzeda in child-bed
found themselves unable to effect delivery owing to con-
genital malformation. After the invocation of the dead
Jesuit, instant safe and painless delivery took place with
perfect health to mother and child. Queen Dofia Margarita,
wife of King Don Felipe III of Spain, endured puerperal
fever. The invocation of Padre Francisco brought a cure.
Then, and with these credentials, the Company of Jesus
formally petitioned the Papal Nuncio in Spain, Monsignor
Decio Carafa afterwards Cardinal, to order an enquiry into
the virtues and miracles of the Servant of God, their departed
General. Five tribunals were found at Valencia, Madrid,

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Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Barcelona, Saragossa, and Recanati ; multitudes of witnesses
were examined and cross-examined. Padre Ribadaneira,
confessor of the deceased, confirmed on oath his book on
the life of Padre Francisco de Borja. From this book,
many of the foregoing facts are taken. In 1615, after
thirty-seven years' labour, the proceedings of the five
tribunals in writing were sent to Rome, where Spain's
ambassador presented them to the Lord Paul P.P. V with
recommending letters from King Don Felipe III, the
Grandees and Hidalgos of Spain, archbishops and bishops,
cathedral chapters, municipalities, and universities.

The Supreme Pontiff was pleased to refer the matter to
the Sacred Congregation of Rites, the Roman tribunal
competent to deal with such a case. Before this court, all
evidence was verified ; and a decree was issued attesting
the orthodoxy of the teaching of the Venerable Servant of
God, his sanctity of life, and the authenticity of the alleged
miracles, satisfactorily to have been proved ; and granted
permission to proceed to Beatification. The Lord Paul P. P. V
confirmed this decree ; and named three Apostolic Commis-
sioners to carry on the cause in Spain. The proceedings of
a Royal Commission are so well understood, that it merely
is necessary to say that the business of an Apostolic Com-
mission is to search for information, to hear and weigh
evidence, and to compile a report on a given subject.

Meanwhile, the claims of Spain to possess the remains
of her renowned son were recognized ; and on the twenty-
third of February 161 7, the body of the Venerable Francisco
de Borja, (except an arm retained at the Gesu in Rome,)
was translated to the chapel of the Jesuit House in Madrid.

In 1623, the eight years labours of the Apostolic
Commission were concluded ; and brought to the usual
scrutiny in Rome. Later, the verdict was given to the
effect that the sanctity and miracles of the Venerable
Francisco de Borja fully had been established ; and that,
therefore, he was worthy of Beatification : which decision
duly was confirmed by the Lord Gregory P.P. XV.

Thirty-one years later, on the thirty-first of August
1654, a decree in accord with this decision was issued
by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and ratified by the

330

The Brilliant Light

Lord Urban P.P. VHP, Who, on the twenty-fourth of
November, published the Bull of Beatification with the
Office and Mass in honour of the Blessed Francisco de
Borja for the Universal Church,

Another seventeen years of public prayers and legal
action passed ; and on the eleventh of April 1671, the Lord
Clement P.P. XI solemnly canonized Saint Francisco de
Borja. adding to the Roman Martyrology, which is the
official roll of sanctitude, the three lines, in which the Holy
Roman Catholic Church delivers Her authoritative judg-
ment, and of which the following is a literal translation :
" Sixth day of the Ides of October. This day, at Rome, is
kept the festival of Saint Francisco of Borja, Repositor-
General of the Company of fesus, memorable, having abdi-
cated secular things and refised dignities of the Church, by
aspejHty of life, by the gift of prayer.

In 1680, the reliques of the saint were translated to the
gorgeous church in Madrid which the Duke of Lerma built
A.M.D.G. To the Greater Glory of God, and of his
ancestor St. Francisco de Borja. So, a century after his
death, a Borgia was numbered with the Saints.

Rational human judgment may be glad to stand aside
before the sober judgment of the Church, so far removed from
bias, from ecstatic extravagance, so calmly judicially personal.
She has divined all, and is reticent. She has settled his
key. She has struck his note, and is sufficient. She has
shewn him in an Ideal Content. He "left all"; and for
that She honours him : and She has Scriptural Warrant,

" An accomplished courtier, a clever diplomatist, a
brilliant and gracious viceroy, a perfect religious.

*' A masterful imperious character — in breaking his own
will he broke himself.

"A magnified non-natural man.

" Saint Francisco de Borja — Memorable — By asperity of
life — By the gift of prayer.

" Memorable.

* # -1$

* * #

1 This Pontiff once was asked to give an opinion as to who had been the
greatest Popes. He answered, St. Peter, St. Sylvester, Alexander VI and
Ourself.

33i

Ashei

"/4 fire, that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays
hold on the faggots ; bursts into a roaring blaze, with raging
tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks
that die ; settles into the steady genial glare, the brilliant light,
that men call fire : burns away to slowly-expiring ashes ; —

From the birthday to the Life eternal of St. Francisco de
Borja, the Spanish Branch of the House in his direct
descendants increased and multipHed ; intermarried with the
grandest names in Spain ; and decreased in importance,
until its extinction in the penultimate decade of the last
century. Four only, of these, need be mentioned here.

Don Gaspard de Borja was a great-grandson of the
Saint, and son of Duke Don Francisco de Gandia by his
wife Doi^a Juana de Velasco Tovar. He studied at the
Complutensian University, becoming a Laureate in Theology
and Dean of the University. He was the first Grandee of
Spain to occupy the Chair of Professor and Public Lecturer.
At the instance of the Catholic King, he obtained a
Canonry at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Toledo ; and here
he began to nourish the enormous ambition of becoming the
third Pope of the House of Borgia.^

On the seventeenth of August 1611, he was named
Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of Santa Croce in
Ge7^usa/em7ne,he\ngthen a youth; " invenis," says Ciacconi ;
twenty-two years of age, says the exact and uniquely well-
informed Moroni. On the fifteenth of May 1630, he was

^ "Card Zappata ajebatfrustra Card. Gasparem Borgia mores componere
" et a natura recedere, ut Pontificatum assequatur. Quandoquidem a multis
"annis Spiritus Sanctus non spiret in Hispania, Cubebat nihilominus fidem
" adhibere inani, et fatuae predictioni bovem tertio murgiturum. Quod assen-
"tatores interpretabantur ut post Calixtum III et Alexandrum VI, ipse tertius
" Pontifex renuntiantur, et famiglia Borgia, bovem in scuto ferens." {Arnidenio,
" in Vite m. s.s. de' Cardinali)

332

Ashes

raised to the Cardinal-Bishopric of Albano, and named
Archbishop of Seville. In Rome, he was on the Sacred
Congregation of the Holy Office, and ambassador of the
Catholic King to the Holy See. In the Kingdom of
Naples, he was Viceroy. He bought, (Mr. Henry Harland
wittily says that one may buy such things,) the additional
title of " Father of the Poor," by distributing annually in
charity ten thousand crowns ; and he exchanged his arch-
bishopric of Seville for that of Toledo. In 1641, he held a
diocesan synod over which his Vicar-General presided as
his proxy, and governed his archdiocese, while he was
cultivating his ambition in Rome. He was an unwilling
assistant at the two Conclaves, which elected the Lord
Gregory RR XV and the Lord Urban RP. VIII. And
in November 1645, while England was in the throes of the
Great Rebellion, he died at Madrid, after fifty-six years of
life, and thirty-four of cardinalate, a disappointed man,
and was buried in the metropolitan cathedral of Toledo.
^ ^'f ^

Don Francisco de Borja, great-great-grandson of the
Saint, son of Duke Don Carlos de Gandia by his wife
Dona Maria Ponce de Leon, was born on the twenty-
seventh of March 1659. He was a man of singular and
extraordinary piety and learning. Archdeacon of Calatrava
and Canon of Toledo. By his proved fidelity he gained
the favour of the Catholic King Don Carlos II, who made
him Councillor of Aragon. From Rome, he received the
bishopric of Calagurita ; and (on the fourteenth of
November 1699, according to Moroni, or on the twenty-
first of June 1700, according to Guarnacci,) the scarlet hat
of the cardinalate and the archbishopric of Burgos. He
died on the fourth of April 1702, undistinguishable from
other ecclesiastics of his rank.

w -tS -tc

Don Carlos de Borja was brother to the foregoing.
Born at Gandia his family's fief on the thirtieth of April
1653 (Moroni), or 1663 (Guarnacci,) he studied theology
at the college of Sant' Ildefonso, and succeeded his brother
as Archdeacon of Calatrava and Canon of Toledo. On the
death of Archbishop Don Pedro de Portocarrero, the Lord

333

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Clement P.P. XI named him Archbishop of Tyre and
Trebizond in partibtis infidelhmi ; a see held at the present
moment by an Englishman who is the ornament of the
" Black " drawing-rooms of Rome. From Tyre and
Trebizond, Archbishop Don Carlos de Borja rose to the
Patriarchate of the Indies, continuing to reside in Spain
where he shewed piety and zeal as chaplain and almoner
to the Catholic King Don Felipe V. On the thirtieth of
September 1720, he was raised to the Sacred College ; and
in his capacity of cardinal, hurried to Rome for the
Conclave of 1721. There, he found already elected and
crowned, the Lord Innocent P.P. XIII, who named him
Cardinal- Presbyter of the Title of Santa Pudenziana, and
placed him on the Sacred Congregations of The Index of
Prohibited Books, of Indulgences, of Signaturae Gratiae.
He died at the Royal Villa of Sant' Ildefonso near Madrid
on the eighth of August 1733, and honourably was buried
there. He has left nothing of his personality, save a
physically effete but beautiful gentle generous shadowy
visage, in his portrait painted by Procaccini, and engraved
by Rossi in Guarnacci II. 357-8.

# * ^

So the Senior Branch, in the line of the direct
descendants of the murdered Duke of Gandia, bastard of
the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, withered in sumptuous
obscurity ; heaping up secular titles and estates by marriage,
heaping up ecclesiastical dignity and preferment by the
enchantment of the Borja name added to personal merit,
until its final extinction only eighteen years ago. The
names and titles of the last of the Spanish Borja, here
recorded, will shew what that House had accumulated in a
bare four hundred years — three principalities, seven duchies,
ten marquessates, sixteen counties, and one viscounty, besides
knightly orders and decorations.

His name was

Don Mariano Tellez-Giron y Beaufort Spontin Pimentel

de Quifiones Fernandes de Velasco y Herrera Diego

Lopez de Zuniga Perez de Guzman Sotomayor

Mendoza Maza Ladron de Lizana Carroz y

334

Ashes

Arborea Borja y Centelles Ponce de Leon
Benavides Enriquez Toledo Salm-Salm Hurtado
de Mendoza y Orozco Silva Gomez de Sandoval
y Rojas Pimentel y Osorio Luna Guzman Mendoza
Aragon de la Cerda Enriquez Haro y Guzman.

His tides were

Prince of Squillace^, Eboli, Melito ;

Duke of Osuna, Infantado, Benevente, Plasencia, Bejar,

Gandia, Arcos de la Frontera, Medina de Rioseco

y Lerma ;
Marquess of Tavara, Santillana, Algecilla, Argiiesco,

Gibraleon, Zahara, Lombay, Penafiel, Almenara

y Cea ;
Count of Benevente, Plasencia, Bejar, Gandia, Arcos

de la Frontera, Medina de Rioseco y Lerma, Real

de Manzanares, La Oliva, Belaleazar, Urefia,

Casares, Melgar, Baiten, Mayorga y Fontenar ;
Viscount of La Puebla de Alcocer.

He was Ten Times Grandee of Spain of the First Class,
Knightof the Orders of Calatrava, of St. John of Jerusalem,
of the Golden Fleece, Knight Grand Cross and Collar of
the Orders of Carlos V, of St. Hermenegild, of St.
Alexandra Newski, of the Christ of Portugal, of the Crown
of Bavaria, of the Legion of Honour, etc., etc., etc.,

He died without issue on the second of June 1882.^

^ tF ^

^ ^ -^

*«" -TV- -A-

1 It would be very interesting to know how and when this title passed from
the line of Prince Gioffredo Borgia into the line of his elder brother Don Juan
Francisco de Borja the murdered Duke of Gandia ; for Prince Gioffredo,
married at fourteen, certainly originated a notable branch of Borgia, which, in
the Seventeenth Century intermarried with the Orsini Duke of Gravina. It
is most unusual for a title to turn back, as it were, and vest itself in another
branch. And what has become of the principalities of Teano and Tricarico,
and the counties of Chiaramonte, Lauria, and Cerignola which were held by
the murdered Duke of Gandia, his son Don Juan II, and the son of the last
St. Francisco de Borja ?

^ All from El Blason de Espaha, by Don Augusto de Burgos, III. i. 85-95.

335

3300& tfje jFourtft

A Flicker from the Embers

A fiyc, that is kindled, begins with smoke and hissing, while it lays
Jiold on the faggots ; bursts into a roaring blaze, with raging
tongues of flame, devouring all in reach, spangled with sparks
that die ; settles into the steady genial glare, the brilliant light,
that men call fire : burns away to slowly-expiring ashes ; save
where smouldering embers flicker, and nurse the glow, —

While St. Francisco de Borja was his contemporary in
the Spanish Branch, Don Pietro Borgia, (the great-grand-
son of that Don Pietrogorio Borgia who was the Trusty
famiUar of Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romaorna and
Viceroy of the Abruzzi,) was Hving in Velletri on the frontier
of the Regno, the Httle Volscian city where his family had
been settled since Don Niccolo Borgia was its Reo^ent in
1 41 7. He married Madonna Filomena — gentildonna violio
pia, is the sweet breath of her, which Archbishop Bona-
ventura Theuli has preserved for us,^ — and had three
children :

(o) The youngest son, Don Polidoro Borgia, died in
his youth, the year before St Francisco de Borgia
died General of Jesuits in Rome. His epitaph,
in the porch of Santa Maria del Trivito at Velletri,
is as follows

D . O . M .

Polidoro Bor-

-giae inveni vir-

-tutibus et

morib. ornat-

^ Theuli. Teatro Istorico di Velletri. Velletri, 1644. H^- 304-

336

A Flicker from the Embers

ISS. FiLUMENA

MATER Hector

I.V.D. ET HORAT-

lus Borgia fr.
B.P . vix . A . XXII
OB . A . M.D . LXXJ
Die XII

OCTOB.l

(/3) The second son, Don Orazio Borgia, became com-
mander of a squadron of Pontifical Cavalry ; and
fell gloriously fighting in the Crusade of Hungary
1597.2

(7) The eldest son, Don Ettore di Pietro Borgia,
married Madonna Porzia Landi, who bore him
two sons : — The younger, Don Alessandro Borgia
became Dean of the cathedral-chapter of his native
city. The elder, Don Camillo Borgia, became
Governor of Velletri, married the Noble Madonna
Constantia Gallinella, and died in 1645. His
epitaph,^ in the chapel of the Visitation of the
IlapOevofxiiTrip (the patron-saint of the Veliternian
Borgia) in the cathedral of San Clemente at
Velletri, is as follows

D. T. V.

Camillo Borgiae Nobili

Veliterno

Hectoris I.e. ET D. Portiae Landae

filio non minus celebri

avorum toga et armis insignium

Claritudine illustri

In Patriae regimine

CONSULI JUDICI ET ReCTORI

Vigilantissimo
Vitae candore morum suavitate

Ubiq. claro omnibus charo

Anno aet. suae LV et men. IV

extincto

Die XXVI. Sept. a partu Virginis

M. DC. XLV

Alexander I.V.D. et huius cathed.

Canonicorum decanus prater

1 Theuli, III. 335. 2 Ricchi, 251.

2 Theuli, III. 312-3.

337 Y

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Hector I.V.D. ex Nobili Constantia
Gallinella filius
extremum amoris

monumentum
mcestiss . posuere^

Don Camillo Borgia left three sons,

(o) The youngest, Don Giampaolo Borgia, was a canon
of Velletri :

(/3) The second, Don Ettore Borgia, was a celebrated
Jurisprudent, who held governorships of pontifical
cities, and was auditor-general and familiar of Prince
Savelli, the Hereditary Marshal of the Holy
Roman Church :

(y) The eldest, the Noble Don Clemente Erminio
Borgia, Roman Patrician, and Governor of Velletri,
who married Madonna Cecilia Carboni, by whom
he had seven children at the least.

Five of these children of Don Clemente Erminio Borgia
have been traced.
They were

(a) Madonna Angela Caterina Borgia, who became a
nun in a convent of Santa Lucia in Silice at Rome,
and who died In The Odour Of Sanctity :

(/3) Don Fabrizio Borgia, born 1689, studied ten years
with his uncle Canon Giampaolo Borgia, became
Bishop of Ferentino in 1729, and died in 1754 :

(7) Don Cesare Borgia, was a Knight Commander of
the Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Malta in
1703 :2

^ While it indubitably is Christian, this epitaph shews that the modern
sophistication, which has destroyed belief in the world to come, already had
made its appearance in Italy. Death here is no longer regarded with the
calm dignity perceivable in earlier epitaphs, (that of his lineal ancestor Don
Pietrogorio Borgia, for example, on p. 434), but as a Horror and an End.

'^ The Order of Malta, or of St. John of Jerusalem, was founded by Don
Gerardo di Martiquez di Provenza, warden of the Hospital of St. John Baptist
for Pilgrims, in 1098. The Hospitallers were dedicated to the service of the
poor ; and wore a black habit, with an eight-pointed Alaltese Cross, in white,
on the breast. They took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The
Regular Foundation was delayed till 1104 when Baldwin I was king in Jeru-
salem. The Rule was that of St. Aurelius Augustine ; and the Order was
finally confirmed by the Bull of the Lord Paschal P.P. II in 11 13. Its Consti-

338

A Flicker from the Embers

(d) Don Alessandro Borgia, born 1682, studied widi his

brother Don Fabrizio under their uncle Canon
Giampaolo ; won the laurel wreath of the Archgym-
nasium of Sapienza at Rome ; in 1706, was attached
to the Secret Nunciature of Monsignor Bussi at
Cologne ;^ in 17 16, became Bishop of Nocera, and
in 1723, Prince- Archbishop of Fermo. [In Mtisetem
Ma32zcc/iel/iana (Tom. 11. Tab. CXCIV, p. 382-3)
there is an engraving of a medal of this prince-
archbishop, which was struck to commemorate the
consecration by him of his nephew, (the son of one
of his sisters whose name remains to be discovered,)
Don Pierpaolo Leonardi, as Prince- Bishop of Ascoli.
The obverse of the medal shews three bishops
sittinor and one kneelino;, with the legend A. Borgia
Archiep. et Princeps Fermanus p. Paulum
Leonardum Ep. et Prin. Asculan. inungit. The
reverse shews the Osotokoq in Assumption blessing
two churches, with the legend Utriusqueecclesiae
Patrona Firmi et Asculi A.D. M.D.CCLV.]
Prince- Archbishop Alessandro Borgia died in 1764.

(e) the heir Don Stefano Camillo Borgia, of the Supreme

Magistracy, who married Madonna Maddalena
Gagliardi, and had issue,

(a) Cavaliere Giampaolo Borgia, general in the

Pontifical Army ;
(j3) The Noble Don Stefano Borgia, in whom
the embers of the House of Borgia flickered
a hundred years ago.
^ i^ #

Don Stefano Borgia was born at Velletri on the third of
December 1731. His early education was conducted in
that little Volscian city where his House had been estab-

tution admitted of Knights of Honour and Brothers of Devotion ; the former
swore to defend the Faith against all enemies, the latter to minister to pilgrims
and afflicted. There were two badges, a cross of six points in gold enamelled
white, and a crowned cross of eight points of the same, worn on a black
riband. The Order had a Priory in London before the Reformation — St.
John of Jerusalem in Clerkenwell — whose original gate and crypt may yet be
seen. The present soi-disant Order which occupies this Priory has yet to
shew authority for its existence.
1 P. E. Cav. Visconti in Tipaldo.

339

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

lished certainly since 141 7, and probably since the Document
of Donation of the Lord Lucius P.P. Ill, 1181-1185.
[Ricchi.) Later, he went to his uncle the Prince- Arch-
bishop Alessandro Borgia of Fermo, with whom he lived, and
under whom he studied, till the latter's death in 1756. The
nature of this education can be judged from Don Stefano's
after-life in which he cut so noble a figure as ecclesiastic,
diplomatist, ruler, scholar, archseologist, man of letters, and
Christian gentleman.

At the age of nineteen years, he had written a learned
little treatise on the monument of the Lord John P.P. XVI ;
and a Short History of the ancient city of Tadino in
Umbria, with an exact account of the latest researches
among its ruins, two octavo volumes published in Rome
1 750-1 : so that when he arrived in the Eternal City after
his uncle's death, he found himself appreciated not only for
his illustrious name, but also for the crescent ability of which
he had given evidence. Three years later, in 1759, he was
named Governor of the city and duchy of Benevento, the
pontifical fief formerly occupied by another Borgia, the
murdered Duke of Gandia. Here he wrote his Historical
Memorials of the Pontifical City of Benevento from the
Eighth to the Eighteenth Century, in three quarto volumes
published in Rome 1763-9. In 1764 he was secretary to
the Sacred Congregation On Indulgences. In 1765, at the
age of thirty-four years, his hands were anointed and he
received the order of priesthood. In 1770 he was named
Secretary a secretis to the Sacred Congregation of the Pro-
pagation of the Faith, (v. title-page of his De Cruce.)

His career was now well-begun ; and he had time to
pursue his favourite occupations of letters and archaeology.
Writing under his initials S. B., he published in 1773 his
discovery of a Venetian Kalendar of the Eleventh Century
from a vellum MS., and a Koptic and Latin Fragment of the
Acts of St. Koluthus. In 1774, he published an edition of
the Lord Pius P.P. IPs (Enea Silvio) work, Against the
Turks. In 1775 the Signor Abbate Stefano Borgia
addressed to the Etruscan Academies of Cortona and
Florence, a duodecimo Philological Dissertation on an
antique gem-intaglio, " la pregiabile vetusta agata — la bella

340

A Flicker from the Embers

e rara gemma — Gemma Borgiana — " ; which the celebrated
and learned antiquary Martinello, in a letter to Padre
Ignazio della Croce a sandalled Augustinian, calls most
scholarly and precious. In 1776 he produced a work in
quarto on the Shrine of St. Peter in the Vatican Basilica.
In 1779, he published a folio on the curious Cross of the
Vatican which is venerated on Good Friday, with the
Syriac Rite of Salutation of the Cross, all most learnedly
set forth and illustrated with notes and commentaries.

He did not forget his House, or his native city of Velletri :
for he established there the Borgia Museum of Antiquities,
which chiefly was famous for the Mexican Codex of his
presentation, lately found worthy to be produced in fac-
simile in Rome with a splendour and importance unap-
proachable by English publishers.

In 1780, he brought out his quarto on the Ancient Cross
of Velletri, " a cross-full of reliques conserved in the
cathedral with much decency." {^Theuli II. 158.) It is a
curious and luscious work, which relates the history of the
Cross, a fine gold piece encrusted with large single pearls
(unionibus) and other gems, from the middle of the
Thirteenth Century, when it was given to the Veliternian
Cathedral of St. Clement by the Lord Alexander
P.P. IV, who, before His election was known as the Lord
Rainaldo de' Conti di Segni,^ Cardinal- Bishop of Ostia
and Velletri.^ The year 1788, saw the issue of a new
quarto from his gifted pen, being a Short History of the
Temporal Dominion of the Apostolic See in the Two
Sicilies ; which went into a second edition the following year.

But at this point, the year of the French Revolution,
the fortunes of the Abbate Stefano Borgia took a signal
turn opening limitless possibilities. The Lord Pius
P.P. VI named him Cardinal- Presbyter of the Tide of San
Clemente, in the Consistory of the thirtieth of March
1789; and promoted him from the secretariate of Propa-
ganda to the Prefectures of the Sacred Congregation of
Index and of the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome.

* The Sforza-Cesarini, who in the Fifteenth Century intermarried with the
Borgia, enjoy the Duchy of Segni at the present day.
' Coronelli, Bibl. Univ. II. 870.

341

chronicles of the House of Borgia

The cardinalitial scarlet is the proper setting for this
noble personage. The Most Eminent Lord Stefano Car-
dinal Borgia becomes at once a type of the huge and
sumptuous princes of the church, to whom letters and the
fine arts lend their glamour, " Quest' Amplissimo Por-
porato," as his friend and biographer the sandalled
Carmelite Fra Pietro Paolino da San Bartolomeo calls him,
had the two marks whereby the perfect gentleman and
scholar universally may be known. He had a pretty taste
for letters, a habit of acquiring rare books and manuscripts ;
and was himself a writer of extreme distinction. He had
also a passion for collecting beautiful and singular things,
especially engraved gems. The magic of carven precious
stones enchanted him, as camei and intaglii ever have
enchanted men of delicate and powerful mental mould.
The times in which he lived were not convenient for the
cultivation of these exquisite tastes : but it is in no case
desirable that they should be cultivated. They lead
nowhere, neither to heaven, nor to hell. Essentially they
have no relation to the work of life, or death ; and it is not
well that they should usurp attention — for there are greater
things. But the possession of these tastes is an imperative
necessity to him who would do those greater things ; for
they bring, as nought else brings, the habit of discrimina-
tion, of selection, of appreciation ; they refine and temper
and grace the steel with which the greater deeds of life,
and death, are done : and, so, their only end is served ;
while he who has them in the nature of him, not laboriously
acquired but congenitally possessed, is the better man, the
more capable man, the more enduring, skilful, potent, and
triumphant man, and, correlatively, the happier man.
Cardinal Stefano Borgia, then, having this gentle generous
love for books and precious stones, most naturally became
one of the most distinguished ecclesiastics of his age.

In 1 79 1, he published as a supplement to his Short
History, a learned quarto in Defence of the Temporal
Dominion of the Apostolic See in the Two Sicilies. To
this, he added, in 1793, a treatise on two Koptic saints,
Koluthus and Panesnice, whose original Acts were in his
possession. But it chiefly was as cardinal of the Curia, as

342

A Flicker from the Embers

Protector of Religious, as Ruler and Governour, as Pro-
prefect of Propaganda (to which he was appointed in
1798,) that he manifested his ability and sterling worth.
When the armies of Revolutionary France invaded Italy,
engaging in those extravagant monstrosities of turpitude
which habitually disgrace the French toward the close of
every century, His Eminence allowed nothing of war or
tumult to disturb the serene and strenuous performance
of his multifarious offices. In those horrid times, when
another or lesser man would have been paralysed, he retired
with superb dignity from Rome to Padua, whence he con-
tinued to administer and govern not his own estates only,
but all the foreign dioceses and missions throug-hout the
world which were subject to Propaganda. And it was
here in Padua that he quietly found time to do a beautiful
and noble deed, by which alone, had he done nothing
else, he would have prepared for himself a more illustrious
name.

At this time, the College of Cardinals contained a
certain August Personage, an Englishman of paramount
importance.

When, in the Revolution of 1688, King James II
Stewart had been driven from his kingdom of England by
the Prince of Orange, His Majesty took refuge in France.
His son Prince James, vulgarly called the Old Pretender,
unsuccessfully warred for his rights in 1715 ; and, on the
death of his father, assumed in exile his birthright with the
style, James III D.G. of Great Britain France and Ireland
King F. D. King James 1 1 1 had two sons, — observe the ad-
mirable insouciant carriage of head on their medals as boys.
The elder. Prince Charles Edward, as Prince of Wales,
vulgarly called the Young Pretender, advanced his father's
claim to the crown of England by force of arms in 1745.
The result was the Massacre of Culloden Moor. The
younger. Prince Henry Benedict, the Duke of York, was a
priest. Hunted from France by Hanoverian diplomacy,
King James III found refuge in Rome, where, at length,
he died ; the Prince of Wales succeeding him as King
Charles III. Prince Henry Benedict meanwhile rose in
ecclesiastical rank through the Cardinal- Bishopric of Ostia

343

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

and;; Velletri (Cardinal Borgia's city), to the Cardinal-
Bishopric of Tusculum and the Vicechancellorship of the
Holy Roman Church. His medal, by Filippo Cropanesi,
dated 1766, shows his royal Stewart profile, still with the
admirable high carriage of head, and the legend

Henricus M.D. Ep. Tusc. Card. Dux. Ebor S.R.E.V. Canc.

In 1788, his brother, King Charles HI, died at Rome;
and was buried with his father in the crypt of the Vatican
Basilica. As he left no legitimate heirs, his rights in the
Majesty of England devolved upon Cardinal Henry Bene-
dict Stewart, who was known as His Royal Highness the
Cardinal Duke of York. This Personaofe combined with
transcendent beauty and truly royal demeanour, rare and
solid virtue and the extreme of o"Ood sense. Nothinof could
have been more perfectly kingly than his easy and ready
realization of his situation. He was aware, as well of his
hereditary rights, as of the fact that his subjects, having
settled down under an usurping dynasty, had disowned and
would disown his claims on their allegiance. He had seen
war in his path. He had no insatiable craving for a crown.
He arrived at a decision absolutely luminously wise. That
the rights of his dynasty should suffer no diminution, by
renunciation on his part, he made a technical assertion of
his sovereignty, proclaiming his accession in such a way
that the usurpation of his throne by the Elector of Hanover,
(vulgarly called George III) should be undisturbed, except
by Engla7i(£s Will. He caused a medal to be struck,
bearing on the obverse His Majesty's effigy in a cardinal's
habit with zucchetto and the pectoral-cross of his episco-
pate,— the kingly head is drooping now — ; with the
legend

Henry the Ninth, of Great Britain France and Ireland King,
Defender of the Faith, Cardinal-Bishop of Tusculum.

The reverse shows a design of Faith, at whose feet are
the cardinalitial hat and kingly crown, and who turns from
the Lion to the Cross ; with the legend

Not by the desires of men but by the Will of God.

344

A Flicker from the Embers

At the same time was struck a touch-piece, for dis-
tribution among the few loyal English who had not bowed
the knee to Hanoverian Baal, and for curing those afflicted
with struma or kings evil ; an occult power which died with
this last Stewart. The obverse bears a design of a frigate
with the legend

Henry the Ninth, of Great Britain France and Ireland, King
BY the Grace of God, Defender of the Faith, Cardinal-Bishop

OF TUSCULUM.

The reverse shows St. Michael Archangel overcoming
the Dragon, with the legend

To God Alone be Glory.

And that was all, — an enduring record, carven in peren-
nial bronze, that the King's Majesty had come to the
inheritance of his ancestors. He believed in his Divine
Right, the right implied in his existence, his existence by
the Sanction of Him by Whom kings do reign ; and he
simply affirmed his Right, waiting for his people to re-
cognize him as their lawful sovereign, to do their part as he
had done his. Could anything be more superbly, more con-
temptuously kingly than this distinction of the parts of
sovereign and subject? Cardinal-King Henry IX was
happy in his lot, for he had a goodly heritage, — in the Holy
Roman Church. Had His Majesty desired, the Supreme
Pontiff" could have released him from his ecclesiastical
estate and obligations by a stroke of the pontifical pen, to
enable him to prosecute his indubitable right. But he did
not so desire. He had chosen the better part — peace — and
the happiness of the subjects who were his, but who never
would own him as their liegfe lord and sovereioi'n. No more
splendid and disinterested example of self-sacrifice exists
in human history than the spectacle of this King of England
who scorned to seek to compel unwilling homage. It was
indeed the act of a king.

After the technical assumption of sovereignty. His
Majesty made no further claim. ^ He did not hesitate to

^ By his last will and testament, Cardinal King Henry IX bequeathed his
rights in the English Crown to the descendants of Anna Maria d'Orleans,
{daughter of Henrietta Stewart, and niece of King Charles I,) who married

345

chronicles of the House of Borgia

use his regal style on monuments which he erected in his
Sub- Urban Diocese, or in similar places : but he was con-
tent to be called the Cardinal- Duke of York, as before,
though all the world knew him as he really was, and invari-
ably accorded the respect due to him as a prince of the
church. There was, however, one notorious exception.
The chivalrous nation of France, which formerly had re-
venged itself on the Lord Alexander P.P. VI by attacking
Madonna Giovanna de' Catanei and Madonna Giulia Orsini
nata Farnese, was just as ready now to strike at the old
and helpless ; and it is to the shameful atrocities of France
that EnHand owes the noble action of a Borgia in reo;ard
to the last of the Royal House of Stewart.

It has been said that Cardinal Stefano Borgia was at
Padua in the autumn of 1799 while the regicidal armies of
the French Consulate were earning infamy by ravaging the
pontifical states. From Padua His Eminence indited a
private letter, dated the fourteenth of September 1799,
addressed to an English baronet, one Sir John Coxe
Hippisley, at Grosvenor Street, London, which will tell a
tale. The Cardinal wrote as follows, in beautiful Italian
with the incorrect spelling of a gentlemian born :

" The friendship with which you honoured me in Rome encourages
" me to lay before you a case worthy of your most mature reflection : which
" is, that, among the other cardinals who have taken refuge in Padua, here
" is also the Cardinal-Duke ; and it is greatly afflicting to me to see so
" great a Personage, the last descendant of his Royal House, reduced to such
" distressed circumstances, having been barbarously stripped by the French
"of all his property " (dai Francesi barbaraniente spogliato di ttdto •) " and,
" if they deprived him not of life also, it was through the mercy of the
" Almighty, Who protected him in his flight both by sea and land, the
" miseries of which, nevertheless, greatly injured his health, at the advanced
"age of seventy- five ; and produced a very grievous sore in one of his legs.

" Those who are well-informed of this most worthy Cardinal's affairs,
" have assured me that, since his flight, having left behind him his rich
"and magnificent valuables, which were all sacked and plundered both at
" Rome and Frascati, he has been supported by the silver-plate which he
" had taken with him, and of which he began to dispose at Messina ; and,
" I understand, that in order to supply his wants during a few months in
" Venice, he has sold all that remained.

Duke Vittoramadeo of Savoja ; from whom descends — not the Bavarian
Princess of the Order of the White Rose, but — KingVittoremanuele III of Italy.

346

A Flicker from the Embers

" Of the jewels ^ that he possessed, very few remain, as the most
" valuable had been sacrificed in the well-known contributions {forced levies
" would be a juster word than the gentle Cardinal's meek contributions) " to
" the French our destructive plunderers ; and, with respect to his income,
" having suffered the loss of forty-eight thousand Roman crowns annually
" by the French Revolution, the remainder was lost also by the fall of
" Rome ; namely, the yearly sum of ten thousand crowns assigned to him
" by the Apostolic Chamber, and also his particular funds in the Roman
" Bank.

" The only income which he has left is that of his benefices in Spain,-
" which amount to fourteen thousand crowns : but this, as it is only payable
" in paper at present, is greatly reduced by the disadvantage of exchange ;
" and even that has remained unpaid for more than a year, owing, perhaps,
" to the interrupted communication with that kingdom.

" But here it is necessary that I should add that the Cardinal is heavily
" burdened with the annual sum of four thousand crowns for the dowry of
'* the Countess of Albany his sister-in-law ; three thousand crowns for the
" mother 3 of his deceased niece ; and fifteen hundred for divers annuities of
" his father and brother : nor has he credit to supply the means of acquit-
" ting these obligations.

" This picture, nevertheless, which I present to your friendship, may
" well excite the compassion of every one who will reflect upon the high birth,
" the elevated dignity, and the advanced age of the Personage whose situa-
" tion I now sketch in the plain language of truth, without resorting to the
" aid of eloquence. I will only entreat you to communicate it to those
" distinguished persons who have influence with your government ; per-
" suaded as I am that English Magnanimity ^ {la Magnanimitd Inglesc) will
" not suffer an Illustrious Personage of the same nation to perish in misery.

" But here I pause, not wishing to offend your national delicacy, which
" delights to act from its own generous disposition, rather than from the
" impulse and urgency of others.^

" We have here (Padua) not only the Cardinal-Duke, but other car-
" dinals, namely, the two Doria, Caprara, and Livizzani ; and perhaps very
" soon they will all be here, as it is probable that the Conclave will be held

■' A ring belonging to Cardinal King Henry IX, containing miniatures of
his father and mother, King James III and Queen Clementina, has found its
way into the Fortnum Collection at the Oxford University Galleries.

2 " Benefices in Spain," the possession of which is alleged as a crime in the
Lord Alexander P.P. VI, appear to be common enough.

^ Miss Clementina Walkinshaw, Countess Alberstorf, the mistress of King
Charles III.

■* The word magnanimitd had undergone a change of meaning since the
Sixteenth Century, when Messor Niccolo Machiavelli sneered that the Bag-
honi of Perugia shewed no magnanimitd, because they did not garrote the
Lord Julius P.P. II, their guest.

^ Could any hint be more obscurely obvious, more insinuatory of compli-
ment ? Cardinal Borgia's little trick of leaving the initiative (!) to John Bull
is a master-stroke of Latin diplomacy, whose strength is, now, and ever, in the
pulling of wires.

347

Chronicles of the House of Borgia

•" in this place ; for it has pleased God to deliver from all His labours the
•" so eminently unfortunate Lord Pius P.P. VI, Who cherished for you the
" most tender affection, and Who was pleased when He was in the Car-
" thusian convent (Certosa) at Florence to invest me with the charge of the
•" Proprefecture of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith.
" My paper fails me, but I shall never fail of being
" Your true friend and servitor {servitore)

" Stefano, Cardinal Borgia."

That letter was written in September 1799. It is not
clear by what route Cardinal Borgia's courier carried
it to England, nor how long was occupied by the journey.
It manifestly is probable that the frightful disorders in
France closed the short road through that country ; and the
short road in time of peace was not traversed in less
than three weeks. An English lady^ who married Don
Lorenzo Sforza-Cesarini Duca di Segni, etc., (they were the
grand-parents of the present Duke Lorenzo,) made the
journey with post-horses in the autumn of 1837 ; and
described it in detail to the present writer a few years ago,
incidentally mentioning that, between London and Rome, it
was necessary to pass in and out of the Pontifical States no
less than five times, with the usual custom-house incon-
veniences. What then would the journey have been in
1799, when France, internally distracted, was inimical to all
and sundry, especially to England and England's friends !
Further the journey from Vienna to Venice occupied a
fortnight, as may be seen from the dates of succeeding
letters on a later page. These considerations are necessary
to explain the fact that three months elapsed before
Cardinal Borgia was able to acknowledge Sir John Coxa

' From the Annual Register, 1837, P- i47- " xvii Sept. 1837. At the
private chapel of the rt. rev. the bishop Griffiths, {Vicar-Apostolic of the London
District) Caroline Shirley, only daughter of Robert Sewallis Shirley, Viscount Tatn-
worth, to Don Lorenzo Sforza. Duca Sforza, only son of the late Don Francisco
Sforza, Duca Sforza, of Rome."

(There is a slight inaccuracy in this notice. Duke Lorenzo should be
descnhed a.s only surviving son of Don Francisco, not as only son; for Don
Francisco's elder son, Don Salvatore, died xix May 1832 ; and Don Francisco's
daughter Donna Anna, wife to Don Marino Torlonia, egregiously failed, before
the Tribunal of the Kuota, to dispossess her younger brother the aforesaid
Don Lorenzo, the legitimate son, born on the night between xvii and xviii of
March 1807, to the aforesaid Don Fra

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